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Memories of a Hundred Years 



^rl^^ 




EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 



Memories of a Hundred 
Years 



BY 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

AUTHOR OF " THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY," ETC. 



TWO VOLUMES IN ONE 



New Edition, Revised, with Three Additional Chapters 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 
1904 

Ail rights reserved 



OCT 25 1904 

SCASS Zl >fXc. No 

3 

OPY B 



Vt^--- 



COPVRIGHT, 1902 AND 1904, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1902. Reprinted 
January, 1903. 

New edition, revised, in one voSume, with three additional chapters, 
published October, 1904. < « 



NortDoot) IpreBB 

J. S. Cashing & Co. — I'.erwirk & Smith Co. 

Norwood, JIass., r..S..^. 



PREFACE 

I LIVE in a large, old-fashioned house which 
is crowded from cellar to attic with letters and 
other manuscripts, with pamphlets, and with 
newspapers. Here are the diaries and corre- 
spondence of my own generation, of my father's 
and mother's, and of their fathers' and mothers'. 
Boxes, drawers, cabinets, secretaries, closets, full 
of "your uncle's papers," or ''your grand- 
father's," or his. 

Only the most gracious of house-mothers 
would tolerate such stores. 

And 1 have inherited the passion for history. 
M}' father was a great journalist. He loved 
to study history in the original documents. 
Boston Stamp Act ? Here are the pamphlets. 
President Adams's private advice to Alexander 
Everett ? Here it is. Mr. Webster's current 
opinions on the tariff? Here they are. Do 
you wonder, dear reader, that when the hearers 
are amiable, your old fi-iend who writes these 



iv PREFACE 

words, now in his eightieth year, is apt to 
prophesy or to chatter about the history of his 
own generation and the generation before his 
own as he saw it through his own keyholes ? 

His friends and yours of Tlie Outlook have 
met him more than half-way in such habits of 
his. And it is so that you see these " memories 
of a hundred years." 

39 Highland Street, Roxbury, 
September 1, 1901. 



With the preface above I introduced to the 
readers of The Outlook magazine a series of 
fourteen chapters, which have been printed in 
that journal in the last year. Many kind cor- 
respondents have furnished memoranda for the 
correction and the enlargement of those papers. 

To the preface of the first edition of this 
book I may now add a few words. The Mem- 
ories here published interested a much wider 
range of readers than I had supposed possible. 
What is called our reading public does not take 
much interest in the history of America. But 
the people who are interested, are interested 
" with a vengeance." I have, therefore, received 



PREFACE V 

many, many interesting letters from such read- 
ers, some on details comparatively unimportant, 
some on the great turning crises of history. 
From these letters I have been able to make, 
in this new edition, some additions and some 
corrections to the papers heretofore published. 

Some readers, perhaps over critical, have 
ventured to say, " Who is this man who airs 
his reminiscences after the century closes ? " 
And at the solicitation of such friends I now 
add to the book, as originally published, some 
supplementary chapters. All autobiography re- 
quires an apology. Saint Paul's admirable in- 
junction, " Let no man think of himself more 
highly than he ought to think," suggests an 
excellent corollary, " Let no man think of him- 
self at all." This is not a bad working rule. 
In the Lend-a-Hand gospel we abridge it into 
the injunction, " Look out and not in." 

Still, if a sentry says to you, " Who goes 
there?" when you try to pass him at midnight, 
it is safer to answer than it is to receive a 
bayonet through the second cardiac lobe. At 
the intelHgent suggestion, therefore, of the pub- 
lishers, I add three autobiographical chapters. 
They are commended to the reader with Abra- 



vi PREFACE 



ham Lincoln's admirable words, which ought to 
be the centre of modern criticism, " The people 
will perhaps like these chapters who like that 
sort of thing." 



EDWARD E. HALE. 



JMatunuck, Rhode Island, 
July 20, l!)Oi. 



CONTENTS 
VOLUME I 
CHAPTER I 



For Five Years 



CHAPTER n 
1801-1807. Failures and Follies .... 47 

CHAPTER HI 
The Smaller Boston 121 

CHAPTER IV 
The Virginian Dynasty 177 

CHAPTER V 
James Monroe 215 

CHAPTER VI 

1808-1840. The Other Side of the Water . . 257 

CHAPTER VII 

Internal Imimiovkment 289 



viii CONTENTS 

VOLUME II 
CHAPTER I 

• PAGE 

The Orators — Modern American Oratory . . 1 

CHAPTER II 
The Historians 43 

CHAPTER HI 
Antislavery ■ . .89 

CHAPTER IV 
Personal — Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska . . 133 

CHAPTER V 
The War 169 

CHAPTER VI 
Literature 221 

CHAPTER VII 
A Review 265 

CHAPTER VIII 
Eighty Years 297 

CHAPTER IX 
The History of Magazines 327 

CHAPTER X 
Now AND Then . 345 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOLUME I 

Edward Everett Hale . . Photogravure Frontispiece 

Drawn by Alfred Houghton Clark. 

"AGE 

Nathan Hale (of the Revolution) ..... 6 

An etching by S. Hollyer. 
The First Cotton-giu 7 

John Marshall 9 

From the portrait by Jarvis, owned by the late Justice Gray. 

Eli Whitney's Letter to the State of Tennessee on the 

Advantages of the Cotton-gin 13 

From the original, owned by the Hon. Eli Whitney of New 
Haven. 

Robert K Livingston 17 

From an engraving by H. B. Hall. 
The First Trip of the Clermont, September, 1807 . . 19 

From a drawing by J. H. Sherwin. 
Robert Fulton 22 

From an engraving by H. B. Hall, Jr., after the portrait by 
B. West. 

Napoleon . 2.5 

From the etching by J. David after the portrait by L. David. 

Thomas Jefferson . . . . , , . .31 
After a French portrait of 182!1. 

Eli Whitney ......... 38 

An engraving after the portrait by C. B. King, 
is 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Philip Nolan's Signature 52 

Affixed to a receipt of merchandise, September 28, 1795. 
From the original in the possession of the author. 

General James AVilkinson, Philip Nolan's Partner . . 54 

From an etching by Max Rosenthal after the portrait by 
C. W. Peale. 

General William Eaton 59 

Engraving by Hamlin. 

General William Eaton and Hamet Caramelli ... 60 
Ou the Desert of Barca, approaching Derne. 

Aaron Burr » 86 

From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 

A Letter from Jefferson to Aaron Burr .... 89 

From the original, owned by the American Antiquarian So- 
ciety. 

Josiah Quincy 94 

After the portrait by Stuart. 

The Quincy Mansion at Quincy 96 

From an early woodcut. 

Williams College as it appeared when Nathan Hale was 

a Student there . 103 

From a painting iu the possession of Williams College. 

Phillips-Exeter Academy, where Natli-an Hale taught in 

1805 109 

Built iu 1794. The wings were added in 1822. 

Dr. Oliver Peabody of Exeter 110 

From an early miniature. 
Letter of Edward Everett 112, 113 

The Boston Weelchj Afessenger ...... 115 

Published by Nathan Hale in 1820. 
Daniel Webster 119 

After the jiortrait by R. M. Staigg. 



ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

PAGK 

James Bowdoin 1- 1 

After the ruiuiaturc Ijv J. H. Daniels. 

Beacou Street a hundred years ago 125 

Boston Custoniliouse I'-O 

Old State House 127 

East View of Faneuil Hall Market 128 

Faneuil Hall » . . 129 

Boston and Worcester Railway 131 

Fnnn au old print. 
The Old State House 133 

From a picture owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

Lafayette's Visit to Boston 136 

From an old print. 
Lafayette 137 

From a colored print. 

Joiui Stark 150 

From the painting by I'. V. Tenney after the Trumbull por- 
trait. 

George Washington 159 

From a stipple engraving after the Houdon bust. 
Ms. Letter of George Washington 163 

Mary Philipse 166 

From an engraving by J. Rogers. 

The Bulletin issued on the Occasion of Washington's 

Entrance into Boston in 1789 171 

Thomas Jefferson ........ 179 

After a painting by Bouch. 

James Madison 186 

After the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 

Major-general Henry Dearborn . . . . . .194 

From au original etching by H. B. Hall. 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGB 



The Capture of the Guerriere by the Constitution . . 196 

From ao engraving by Samuel Walker after the drawing by 
T. Birch. 

Commodore James Richard Dacres 197 

Engraved from the portrait by Bowyer. 

American Naval Commanders of the War of 1812 : 

A. William Bainbridge 197 

Portrait by J. W. Darvis. 

B. Isaac Hull 198 

From an engraving after the original portrait by 
Gilbert Stuart. 

C. Stephen Decatur .199 

Portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 

D. Commodore Rodgers 199 

Portrait by Henry Williams. 

E. James Lawrence 206 

Portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 

The Guerriere Ballad 201 

From an original in the possession of the author. 

Captain Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke .... 212 
From an engraving by W. Greatbateh. 

James Monroe 218 

From the portrait by Vauderlyn. 

Governor De Witt Clinton 226 

Engraved from the bust by A. B. Durand. 

John Quincy Adams 235 

After an engraving from the portrait by A. B. Durand. 

William Harris Crawford 236 

Engraved by S. H. Gimber from a painting by J. W. Darvis. 

John Caldwell Calhoun ....... 237 

From a miniature by Blanchard. 

Henry Clay as a Young Man 243 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



18'2(i 



George Canning . . . . 

From a sketch inacle in the House of Coinmous, March 

Alexander Hill Everett .... 
From an early miuiature. 

The Everett House at Dorchester 

Emperor Alexander I .... 

From an engravinj? by Montaut. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge .... 
From an engraving of 1809. 

Abel Fullum 

Drawn by Eilen D. Hale. 
The New England Primer .... 

From the collection of W. G. Bowdoin, Esq. 

General Andrew Jackson .... 
From a rare print by F. Cardou. 

The Hermitage 

Martin Van Buren 

After a miniature by Mrs. Bogardus. 

A View of Boston, showing the Brovidence and the 

Worcester Kailwajs 

From an early drawing. 
New York Canal Celebration, November 4, 1825 

Illumination of the New York City Hall during the Grand 
Canal Celebration ....... 

James Sullivan, President of the IMiddlesex Canal Com- 
pany 

After the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 
Colonel Loannni Baldwin ....... 

From a silhouette. The only known portrait from life. 
The Falls in the Merriniack at Chelmsford 

From a painting by an English artist. 



PACE 

247 



252 

255 
259 

262 

266 

268 

271 

272 

281 

292 
295 
297 
300 
301 
302 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Susquehanna at Liverpool, Pa., showing the Pennsyl- 
vania Canal 



304 



A comparisou of the two modes of carrying freight. 
The Pioneer Line Station at Lancaster, Pa. 

An Advertisement of the Express Line between Lancaster, 

Philadelphia, and Pittsburg 

From a newspaper of 1837. 

The Erie Canal 316 

Part of a Letter written by De ^Vitt Clinton in 1817 . 318 



312 



314 



VOLUME II 

Edward Everett Hale Frontispiece 

Drawn by Alfred Houghton Chirk. 
Edward Everett 10 

From a daguerreotype. 

A Letter from Daniel Webster to Nathan Hale (Dr. 

Hale's Father) 18 

From the original owned by Dr. Hale. 
Daniel Webster 27 

From a daguerreotype. 
John Gorham Palfrey .49 

From a painting by Rembrandt Peale. 
Bust of Jared Sparks 53 

George Bancroft 55 

After a photograph by Fredrieks. 
Richard Hildreth .07 

William H. Prescott 69 

From a stipple engraving. 
Prescott's Home at Pepperell, Mass 71 

From an engraving by J. Kirk. 



ILLUSTRATIONS xv 

PAGE 

\Vashiiigton Ii-ving ........ 73 

Painted by D. Wilkie at Seville, April 23, 1828. 
The First Home of the Mas.sachu.setts Historical Society . 87 

From iiii early photograph. 
William Lloyd (iarrisoii and Wendell Phillips ... 92 

William Ellery Channiug ....... 97 

From the portrait by Gambardella, owned by Miss Channiug. 

Theodore Parker's Placard ...... 101 

Placard written by Theodore Parker and printed and i)Osted 
by the Vigilance Committee of Boston after the rendition 
of Thomas Sims to slavery in Aiiril, 1851. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe 106 

Edmund (^uincy ......... 114 

A Pro-slavery Handbill . . . . . . .116 

This was printed at the ottice of the Boston Commercial 
Gazette, under the dii-ectioti of the proprietor, James L. 
Homer, on the 21st of October, 1835, and was directed 
against George Thompson, who was then causing great 
excitement by his eloquent addresses against slavery. The 
poster was set up and run off on a hand-press by two ap- 
jjrentices of Homer, one of whom was George C. Rand, 
subsequently a master printer of Boston and the first 
printer of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." These two boys then 
distributed them among the bar-rooms and barber-shops 
of the business section of the city, with the result that by 
two o'clock a raging mob of five thousand people gathered 
about the antislavery office, and shortly after laid violent 
hands upon Mr. Garrison, in the absence of Mr. Thompson, 
who was out of the city. 

A Letter from Theodore Parker on the Antislavery Enter- 
prise. Dated Sept. 10, ISoo 117 

Theodore Parker's Grave . . . . . . . 11!» 

Charles Sumner ......... 161 

From an engraving by Augustus Robin. 
Abraham Lincoln . 172 

After a photograph by .M. B. Brady. 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Ulysses S. Grant 183 

Stoughton Hall, Harvard College 225 

Built after Old Stoughton was burned down in 1775. 

Five Presidents of Harvard College : Quincy, Everett, 

Walker, Sparks, Felton 229 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 231 

From a painting by Alfred E. Smith, after an old daguerreo- 
type. Copyright by Foster Brothers, Boston. 

Longfellow and Sumner ....... 241 

Abiel Smith 244 

Founder of the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at 
Harvard College. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 248 

From a photograph taken in 1862. 

James Russell Lowell, John Holmes, Estes Howe, and 

Robert Carter, at a Game of Whist .... 255 
Photographed by Black in 185'J. 

A Page from the Valedictory Exercises of Lowell's Class 

at Harvard 257 

Judge Lowell , , . 260 

Edward Everett Hale as a Young Man .... 299 
From an early portrait. Copyright by the S. S. McClure Co. 

Nathan Hale, Jr., as a Young Man 305 

Edward Everett Hale in 1846 313 

From the painting by Richard Hinsdele. 

Church at Worce.ster, Mass., at which Dr. Hale officiated 

in 1846 317 

Eli Thayer 321 

Amos Lawi-ence 323 

George Rex Graham, Editor of Graham's Magazine . . 334 

John Sartain, Editor of Sartain's Magazine . . . 339 



ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 

PAGE 

Moses Dresser Phillips .341 

Reproduced by permission of Ilouglitoii, Mifflin & Co. 

Capitol, Washington, 1841 348 

Railway Train in the JMohawk Valley, 1844 . . . 352 

Trenton Falls 300 

From an old print. 

Susquehanna Canal aud Boats, 1844 368 



FOR FIVE YEARS 



VOL. I. — B 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDEED YEAES 

CHAPTER I 
FOR FIVE YEARS 

NO ! I am not as old as the century. A 
dear little Italian girl at Miss Noyes's 
Kindergarten asked me the other day if I were 
George Washington. I was flattered. I was 
pleased, as we are always pleased by flattery. 
But I had to confess that I was not " the father 
of his country." She seemed relieved. She sim- 
ply said, " He was verjj white," with an emphasis 
on the " he " and the " very," and we changed 
the conversation. 

All the same, that year 1801 stands out in the 
family record here with a very bright vermilion 
mark. For it was on an autumn day in the year 
1800 that my father was at work in his father's 
garden in Westhampton, Mass. I should say he 
was digging potatoes, if I dared rely on a memory 
of iron which seldom deceives me. And the 
family tradition says he was digging potatoes. 
But modern historical realism requires stern ac- 

3 



4 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

curacy, and I will not swear. Anyway, he was 
at work in the garden. 

His father, my grandfather, Enoch Hale, 
suddenly called him into the house, and told 
him that he was called that he might see 
Tutor Gould. I have no doubt that the boy 
washed his hands in the perennial spring 
which still flows in the woodshed behind the 
kitchen, and, with this immediate preparation 
only, joined the two ministers in his father's 
study. 

The boy was sixteen years old on the 16th of 
August, which had recently passed. 

Of the two ministers whom he met in the 
study, one was Enoch Hale, who had been min- 
ister at Westhampton since 1777, and who died 
in that charge in 1837. The other was the Rev. 
Vinson Gould, remembered by Williams College 
men as one of their early tutors. Williams Col- 
lege, in the northwestern township of Massachu- 
setts, had been chartered by the General Court 
of that State in the year 1793. It was founded 
to carry out a bequest from Colonel Ephraim 
Williams, a frontier colonel in the " French 
War." At the moment I am trying to describe, 
Tutor Gould was engaged in recruiting for the 
College, and picking up pupils here and there. 



FOR FIVE YEARS 5 

Here is tlie brief account of his arrival in the 
Rev. Enoch Hale's Journal : — 

"Oct. 6, 1800. Showery morning. Kill sheep. 
Mr. Vinson Gould, candidate and tutor at Will- 
iams College, dines here. Examines Nathan and 
admits him a member of Williams College. Mr. 
T. Wood also dines. He last night at Mr. J. S. 
Parsons. Afternoon ride Mr. E. Rust. His child 
sick." 

They told the boy that he was to be examined 
in Greek and Latin, that Mr. (iould might judge 
whether he were fit to enter Williams College at 
the next term. One pauses to consider how sat- 
isfactory to the pupil was this system of ex- 
amination. One imagines President Low and 
President Eliot in this summer of 1901 riding on 
horseback from town to town to examine their 
future students in Greek and Latin at their 
homes. How much of the misery of modern 
examinations must have been saved to our 
fathers and our grandfathers ! The boy read 
his Greek Testament to the satisfaction of both 
his examiners. He read such scraps of Latin as 
they gave him to their equal satisfaction. Mr. 
Gould expressed liis ])leasure, and said tliat the 
boy was quite prepared for the college coiu-se. 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



My grandmother gave them all their dinner, 
which you may be sure was daintily served, and 
Tutor Gould mounted his horse again and pro- 
ceeded on his way. I 
like to begin these mem- 
ories with that story, 
because once for all it 
compares the simplicity 
of those days with the 
clatter and creaking, 
with the fuss and feath- 
ers, of to-day. And let 
me say, as we pass on, 
that I think the Latin 
and the Greek had been 
well taught and well 
learned. The teach- 
er was my grand- 
father, who had 
learned his Latin 
and Greek at Yale 
College with his 
brother and class- 
mate Nathan Hale, 
the same whose statue stands by Broadway to- 
day. How much of my father's Latin and Greek 
he learned at Williamstown I cannot say, but, 




Nathan Hale. 

From an etchiug by S. Hollyer. 



LOUISIANA 



as a man, he read both languages easily and 
with pleasure. He kept up his acquaintance 
with both until he died. 

LOUISIANA 

The boy who was digging potatoes in October, 
1800, graduated at Williams College in the 
summer of 1804. In the four years between a 
great deal was going on in this world. On the 
other side of the ocean. Napoleon made peace 
with Great Britain. The peace lasted for a year 
and a half, and then the English Ministry forced 
him into war again. Meanwhile he sold Loui- 
siana to the United States — almost half of 
our present domain, 
everything which 
we hold between 
the Mississippi and 
the crest of the 
Rocky Mountains. 

In the same years, 
Fulton was building 
his first steamboat, 
and without the 
steamboat little use had we for the Mississippi 
Valley. In the same years, Eli Whitney's 
cotton-gin begins to teach men how cotton 




■■^-^ 



ThK FlKST CUTTON-GIN. 



8 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

is to be king. In the same years, Thomas 
Jefferson is learning what a nation is, and 
John Marshall is teaching all America, what 
till now America does not know, that the 
United States IS a Nation. Even Jefferson 
had thought that the United States loei^e a 
Confederacy. 

To speak of one detail in this four years' 
history, on the 22d day of March, 1801, Philip 
Nolan, the first explorer of Texas, was killed at 
Waco, in Texas, by one Spanish official, while 
he was acting under the orders of another. 
For this atrocity and others which preceded 
it and others which followed in its train, 
the people of the Mississippi Valley never 
forgave Spain ; and we have seen the result 
in our own time. 

While such seeds were planted in one hemi- 
sphere or another, the Westhampton boy, glad 
to be released from the care of the potatoes, was 
perfecting his Latin and Greek at Williams 
College. He studied Hebrew also. I asked him 
once why he did this. He laughed and said, 
" Because there was nothing else to study." But 
this was not literally true. The mathematical 
course was thorough, and led him through 
studies which delighted him. For his work in 




JOHN MARSHALL. 
From the portrait by Jarvis, owned by Justice Gray. 



LOUISIANA 11 

internal iniprovenieuts as au accomplished civil 
engineer, Williams College gave him good prepara- 
tion, and the French language was taught there. 

He thoroughly enjoyed his college life. He 
was so accurate in afterlife as a classical scholar 
and as a mathematician that I am sure he must 
have used his time well. 

The students had already divided themselves 
into the Philotechnian and Philologian Societies. 
It has pleased me, in these later years, to think 
that, as he became so distinguished a craftsman 
in the great enterprises by which men control 
nature, he should have been ranked among the 
Philotechnians or artificers. But this may have 
been an accident. 

They still preserve in the College Library the 
old record-book of the Philotechnian. It was 
while he was Secretary that Livingston in Paris 
bought Louisiana for the country. " I have 
given England her rival," said Napoleon, and 
we have to confess that it was to Napoleon's 
foresight that we owe that purchase and all 
which has followed it. Jefferson was badly 
frightened, but had to accept the present. The 
New England Federalists detested the whole 
business. And these boys of the Philotechnian, 
sons of Federalist fathers, put themselves on 



12 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

record. Here is the minute of the meeting 
which debated the 

" Question. Is the purchase of Louisiana de- 
sirable ? Decided in the negative : fifteen to 
one. 

The New England States hated the whole 
business because they supposed that the emigra- 
tion would strip them of their population. Lit- 
tle did Massachusetts think then that the time 
would come when she would pay in that region 
for her breadstuffs with her fish and lobsters as 
she does now. 

But, alas ! you can look through the records 
of the young craftsmen of the Philotechnian and 
find no reference to Eli Whitney's cotton-gin or 
to Robert Fulton's steamboat, two inventions 
already at work which were to revolutionize 
then* land. Had any prophet told them this, 
they would have said he was a fool. 

Yet, indeed, without the steamboat, of wdiat 
use was Louisiana ? Without it Lewis and 
Clark were eighteen months in 1804 and 1805 



'&' 



in going from St. Louis to the Pacific, and eight 
months in 1806 in coming back. They did not 
know it, but a year before they left St. Louis the 
two Roberts, Fulton and Livingston, were build- 



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Kli Whitney's Lkttkh to thk Statk of Tennessek on 
THK Advantages of the Cotton-gin. 

From the original, owned by the Hon. Eli Whitney, of New Haven, 
and here reproduced for the lirst time. 



LOUISIANA 15 

ing the steamboat which, before the summer was 
over, was sailing on the Seine, at Paris. I do 
not believe that one of the Philotechnian boys 
had ever heard of Eli Whitney, though he was 
of their own State. He was from the eastern 
half of their State, of which they did not know 
much. Yet his machine had been eight years at 
work, as at least twenty-live thousand bales of 
cotton were exported in that year. But, from 
Jefferson down, not a man, except Whitney, per- 
haps, foresaw the ascendency which the cotton- 
gin was to give to the Southern country, and 
that while they still lived King Cotton was to be 
ruling with a sceptre harder than iron. As late 
as 1795, in the negotiations for Jay's treaty, no- 
body alluded to cotton as a possible article of 
export from America. Eight years afterward, 
while the boys were discussing the Louisiana 
treaty. Slater was weaving cotton in Pawtucket 
in Rhode Island, and the Cabots in Beverly in 
Massachusetts. But I doubt if any of the Philo- 
technians knew that. No ! they were all dressed 
in homely clothes of homespun cloth, cotton 
and woollen, woven in most cases on their 
mothers' looms. 



16 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

THE FOUR GREAT BUILDERS 

As late in the century as 1792 the Abbe Genty, 
in France, had written a prize essay on the ques- 
tion whether the discovery of America by Co 
lumbus had been of more good or evil to the 
world. I think that the general opinion of 
people who thought about the matter at all was 
that the discovery had done more harm than 
good. The Abbe Genty took the other side. 
In his argument he had to put forward, with as 
much spirit as he could command, the possible 
contribution which the United States, a nation 
then three years old, would make to the world. 

Before twenty years were over many of his 
prophecies were fulfilled. And for the visil3le 
chang;es in that time we are indebted to four 
men — whom one might call the Four Founders. 

Two of them are men whose names w^ere on 
the lips of people who then talked about history ; 
they were Napoleon Bonaparte and Robert Liv- 
ingston. The other two were Eli Whitney and 
Robert Fulton. 

It is worth observation that the three Ameri- 
cans were not the men who thought they were 
the leaders, or wdio made most figure in the 
journals. Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Fisher 



THE FOUR GREAT BUILDERS 



17 



Ames, John Bidvvell, Tristani Barges, for in- 
stances, made a good deal of noise in the news- 
papers. Jefterson was President and Burr was 
Vice-President. But Jeiferson did nothing 
wliich made 
the feeble Na- 
tion strong ; 
Burr was in 
exile in less 
than four years 
from the time 
when he was 
Vice-President. 
And the reader 
wonders why 
I name the 
others. 

I do so be- 
cause when Bidwell and Burges spoke in the 
House of Representatives the Senate could not 
hold a quorum, and wdien Ames spoke it was 
thought well in the Senate to adjourn, lest men 
sliuuld vote on their side too precipitately. It 
is such men as they who fill the newspapers 
of the day ; yes, and the private letters of the 
day. All the same, such men did not make 
the America of 1812 or of 1850 from the 




Robert K JjIVIngston. 
From an engraving by H. B. Hall. 



VOL. I. — c 



18 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

America of 1799. The four men who can be 
named as leaders were the Four Founders I 
have named above. 

Napoleon's share in the creation of America is 
this. He instructed Marbois, his Foreign Secre- 
tary, to offer to the United States the great wil- 
derness called Louisiana — the whole part of the 
valley of the Mississippi which is between that 
river and the Rocky Mountains. Robert Living- 
ston received the offer and he had the courage to 
accept it — without orders from home. To these 
two men does the United States owe half the 
continent. 

Remember this, young graduates of 
1902 ! Remember that States are made by 
makers. Remember that the Leaders lead. 
Remember that it is not the gift of tongues 
which makes the Leader. Remember that the 
men who can, can. Such men are. And such 
men do. 

An American shipmaster, Robert Gray, had 
discovered the Columbia River and entered its 
mouth in 1792. With this discovery begins our 
claim to a hold on the Pacific shore. After this 
the three great steps forward are : First, the 
importance of the cotton crop began to assert 
itself. In the years 1801, 1802, 1803, the export 



THE FOUR GREAT BUILDERS 19 

of cotton from America to England was thirty- 
three milKou pounds. 

This increase of power was due to EU Whit- 
ney, whose cotton-gin had been patented in 1795. 

Second is the great proposal by Napoleon to 
Robert Livingston, made in Paris in April, 1803. 
Napoleon, as I have said, offered to sell to the 
infant nation called '' The United States " all 
the territory between the Mississippi River and 
the crest of the Rocky Mountains. 



Thk Fikst Trip of the "Clermont," Septemeek, 1.SU7. 
From a drawing by J. H. Sherwiii. 

The third of these events is the voyage of the 
Clermont steamboat from New York to Albany 
on the 7th day of August, 1807, which has 



20 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

led to the opening up of the great watercourses 
of America, all but useless before. 

There must always be remembered with this 
series the marvellous extension of the maritime 
commerce of the United States in the period be- 
tween 1790 and 1815. No one person can be 
said to have invented this marvellous progress. 
There is no one person whose bust can be placed 
in any hall of heroes as a type of it. What is 
certain is that Thomas Jefferson and the people 
of his type did all they could to arrest it ; and 
what is also certain is that, in face of all they 
did, the shipping of the United States increased 
between the year 1789 and the year 1812 in such 
a proportion that the United States, at the end 
of the Napoleonic wars, was one of the first 
maritime powers. 

Given now these four miracles — first, the 
appearance of cotton ; second, the doubling of 
the territory of America ; third, the development 
of steam, especially in the commerce of the great 
rivers of the American continent; and, fourth, 
the navigation which made the United States for 
twenty years the carrying power of the world — 
given these four series of events, and in their 
history you know why the insignificant confed- 
eracy which the Abbe Genty described became a 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 21 

Nation hopeful in its arts, not insignificant in its 
arms, and renowned througliout the world in its 
commerce. 

It is, as I have said, worth noting that, among 
men who call themselves statesmen, bnt who 
appear on the stage as politicians, Livingston is 
the only one who contributed in any impor- 
tant degree to these triumphs. You may read 
through the diaries of the jDarty leaders of the 
twent}^ years between the invention of the 
cotton-gin and the Treaty of Ghent, and yon will 
find hardly an allusion, in the writings of the 
politicians, either to the invention of the cotton- 
gin, the invention of the steamboat, or the value 
to the Nation of the great rivers of the West. 
On the other hand, three out of fonr of them 
were doing their best to destroy our commerce 
at sea. 

LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 

. While Nathan Hale was studying Latin and 
Greek and Hebrew, a revolution impended which 
neither Williams College, nor Thomas Jefferson, 
nor the sophomore Nathan Hale dreamed of. 

Fulton's model steamboat ran upon the 
Seine. 

In 1843 I met intimately his companion in 



22 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



young life, Edward Church, then an old man in 
Northampton, Mass. 

Fulton and he were room-mates in Paris in 
1803. I think they both slept in the same bed. 

I know that Ful- 
ton's model 
steamer had suc- 
ceeded so well 
that Fulton had 
waited on Napo- 
leon's people 
with his plans 
for steam navi- 
gation, and had 
been courteously 
received. Napo- 
leon was already 
planning the ex- 
pedition against 
England. It had 
been planned be- 
fore the peace ; 
and this project for boats which would go against 
wind and tide and could tow other boats full of 
men from one side of the Channel to the other 
was just what he wanted. Church told me that 
a committee had been appointed to examine 




Robert Fultox. 

From an engraving by H. B. Hall, Jr., after 
the portrait by B. West. 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 23 

Fulton's model. Fulton had prepared every- 
thing for the examination as well as he could, 
and had all things ready for a show trip. The 
day was appointed — a day which would have 
been a red-letter day in both then* lives and in 
history. 

Alas and alas ! Before that day dawned, 
when both were in bed, and, as I say, I think 
both in the same bed, a rat-tat-tat at the door 
awaked them. It was from a messenger who 
had come in hot haste from the river to say that 
the weight of the engine had caused it to break 
through the too fragile barge, and that the 
engine was at the bottom of the Seine ! 

That particular experiment never took place. 
The trial trip was postponed. Observe that she 
had successfully navigated the river already. 

This is Mr. Church's account, as I wrote it 
down — after his death, as I am sorry to say. 

(Memorandum : N.B. When you know any- 
thing worth knowing which few other peoj)le 
know, write it down at once.) 

I have since verified this story, and can supply 
the details almost to tlie date. When Fulton 
told the story, he said that the messenger's con- 
sternation announced that he bore bad news, and 
that he exclaimed in French in accents of de- 



24 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

spair, " Oh, sir, the boat has broken to pieces, 
and has gone to the bottom." This was early 
in the spring of 1803. " An agitation of the 
river by the wind " had broken the little boat 
in two. 

Poor Fulton rushed to the place, and personally 
assisted in raising boat and engine from the 
water. He worked on this for twenty-foiu" hours 
without food, and to his exposure that day he 
attributed afterward much of his bad health. 
The machinery was not much hurt, but they had 
to reconstruct the boat almost entirely. The 
new boat was sixty-six feet long ; and early in 
August, after the accident, she made a successful 
trial, to which Fulton invited the members of 
the Institute. He was satisfied with his success. 
But the first failure, according to Mr. Church, 
chilled the committee of the Institute, and Ful- 
ton found that he should have no encouragement 
from Napoleon. 

All those experiments were made with the 
cooperation of Robert R Livingston — " Chan- 
cellor Livingston " — the wisest American of the 
time — according to me. He was our Minister 
in France. OI)serve now that on the 30th of 
April, 1803, this wise man bought Louisiana 
from Napoleon for fifteen million dollars. 



LiriNGSTON AND FULTON 



25 



Observe that on the 12th of May Lord Whit- 
worth, the English Minister, demanded his pass- 
ports and that war with England began — the 
war which ended with Elba. Observe that on 
the 18th day of May, 1804, Napoleon proclaimed 
himself Emperor, and that he had already 
begun to gather his army at Boulogne and the 
neighborhood 
for an inva- 
sion of Eng- 
land. And 
consider the 
use he would 
have made of 
twenty steam 
barges. 

Of the com- 
mittee of the 
Institute to 
W' h o m the 
plans had 
been referred, 
F. Emmanuel 
M 1 a r d is 
named first, 

he or his brother Claude Pierre Molard — both 
distinguished French engineers. 1 do not know 




Napoleon. 

From the etching by J. Uavid after the 

portrait by L. David. 



26 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

which of them " made the great refusal." The 
next was M. Bovrel, whose name even is not in 
the dictionaries ; and the last is Montgolfier ! 
Was there a covert satire in appointing the 
balloonist ? 

What we know is that Napoleon and the 
Institute turned a cold eye on the little steamer, 
though they must have seen her as she plied 
back and forth on the Seine that summer. And 
we know that Livingston did believe in her, and 
that what followed, the great success which 
made steam navigation universal, was attained 
on the Hudson and not on the Seine. I do not 
find the date of the fatal morning when the 
engine broke through the bottom of the first 
boat. But it was early in the spring. It was 
on the 24th of January, 1803, that Fulton had 
placed a model of it in the hands of the com- 
mittee of the Academy. And, as I have said, 
it was in August of that year that the larger 
boat was finished and made her first trips on 
the river. 

I have called " Chancellor Livingston," as he 
was called in those days, the wisest American of 
his time. Franklin had died in 1790. In the 
latter part of his life the Chancellor wrote his 
name Robert R Livingston, to distinguish him- 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 27 

self from other Roberts in the family.^ As early 
as 1795 he had obtained from the State of New 
York a concession of an exclusive right to navi- 
a^ate with steam vessels the waters of that State. 
I suppose his attention had been called to the 
subject ])}' Jonathan Fitch's steamboat, which 
had run on the Delaware Riveras early as 1787.'- 
Navigation by steam had tal^en such a hold on 
the minds of some Americans that on tlie 20th of 
May, 1803, Benjamin Latrobe, the first engineer 
in America, speaks of a '' sort of mania, which 
has not entirely subsided, for impelling boats by 
steam engines." It will be well to remember 
that in the year 1800 there w^ere but five steam 
engines in the whole country — small engines at 
that. And Latrobe proved that this was a mania 
by the paper wliich he read that day before the 
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Apple- 
ton's life of Fulton gives the following list of 
those who had used steam on boats of any de- 
scription : Rumsey, on the Potomac, 1785; Fitch, 

1 A correspondent asks me why Robert R Livingston (" R " 
was not an initial) does not appear among the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. It is because it was supposed, at 
the moment, that he was more needed in the New York Assem- 
bly, and he was in his place there. 

- Compare p. 110 of my unknown novel "East and West." — 
E. E. li. 



28 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

on the Delaware, 1785, 1787; Millar, in Scot- 
land, 1787; Read, 1789; Longstreet (Savannah), 
1790 ; Samuel Morey, 1794. 

Let the reader observe that Fulton's engine 
had sunk in the bottom of the Seine a few weeks 
before Latrobe's paj^er was read, and that Fulton 
and Livingston were beginning on the larger boat 
which was to ply on that river in August, 1803. 

Fulton had begun life as a painter. There is 
a portrait of Franklin by him painted in Phila- 
delphia when Franklin was more than eighty 
and Fulton was twenty or twenty-one. He 
afterward studied the art of painting for sev- 
eral years in London with Benjamin West, but 
he became more and more interested in engi- 
neering, in canals, mills, and aqueducts. He was 
Lord Stanhope's friend.^ In 1794 he w^ent to 
Paris, where he exhibited the first panorama 
ever shown there. It was in the street still 
known as the "Passage des Panorames," well 
known to artists who have studied in Paris. 
He was the friend of " Columbiad " Barlow, our 
Minister, and at once, apparently, came to know 
Livingston when Livingston arrived there as suc- 
cessor to Barlow. 

1 Stanhope of the Printing-Press, grandfather of Lord Ma- 
hon of tlie History. 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 29 

Liviugstoii, as 1 have said, had been inter- 
ested in steamboats as early as 1795. He and 
Fulton were in full sympathy. Tlie only refer- 
ence to Fulton in Paris which I have found in 
our State Paper Office is in a letter from Liv- 
ingston to the State Department as early as 
May 22, 1802, where he commends Fulton's 
plans for a diving apparatus and torpedo, but 
makes no reference to steam. Perhaps they 
had not yet entered on that matter, or, more 
probably, Livingston did not care to refer to it 
until it had succeeded. 

Fulton's panorama was successful, and the 
boat built on the Seine was built at the joint 
expense of Fulton and Livingston. While Liv- 
ingston always spoke of him as the successful 
inventor, Fulton alwa}'s acknowledged Living- 
ston's inestimable service to the great enter- 
prise. One of the early American steamboats 
was the Chancellor Livingston. I know that I 
had never heard of this great man wdien I first 
heard of this steamboat. 

The success of the experiment on the Seine 
induced Fulton and Livingston to order an 
engine in England, which was that used on the 
Clermont on her first successful voyage on the 
Hudson River. 



30 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Robert Livingston's brother welcomed Robert 
Fnlton in New York, and assisted him in the 
building of the Clermont. The Clennoiifs 
boiler did not break through tlie bottom, and 
she did not sink. The Clermont went to Albany 
in thirty hours, and returned to New York. 

In the autumn of 1804 my father had been 
twelve days going in a passenger sloop from 
New York to Troy, above Albany. The tradi- 
tion in the family is that he read through Gib- 
bon's "Decline and Fall" while he was on the 
passage. 

Poor Mackintosh, the historian, afterward Sir 
James Mackintosh, was in exile in Bombay at 
that time, working his way along in the East 
India service, and horribly homesick. In his 
diary he writes, in recording Fulton's success, 
" that we had lived a hundred years later ! " 

Dear Sir James, we do live ninety-three years 
later, and we do not need a hundred days to go 
from London to Bombay ! ^ 

^ J\Ir. Henry Adams quotes from a letter of Jackson, tlie 
English minister, who had a summer house on the North River, 
who wrote as late as May, 1810, that every day there was a gen- 
eral rush of his household to see the steamboat pass. " 1 doubt 
whether I should be obeyed were I to desire any one of them 
to take a passage in her." This was in the fourth year of the 
Clermonfs success. 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 



31 



I have risked this excursion on the birth of 
the steamboat because, as this reader and I 
wander down through the mazes of the century, 
we shall constantly come on what used to be 
called "internal improvement" — the business 
in which Robert Fulton thus led the way. 

The philosophical reader, which means the 
reader of sense, will 
see that the physical 
prosperity of the na- 
tion in the nineteenth 
century is due chiefly 
to four great steps, 
one might say four 
yictories, none of 
which in the begin- 
ning was appreciated 
except l)y the men 
who won them, and 
the one clog and 
drawback on the country from 1801 to 1900 
was the institution of slavery, not yet done with. 

To get some good working idea of our prog- 
ress, and at the same time to see how it was 
clogged and thwarted ]jy slavery and by the 
combinations necessary to support it, is to get 
some available notion of what the century has 




Thomas Jeffersox. 
After a French portrait of 1X2!). 



32 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

been and has done for the United States. 
What are called the details of history, such 
as why Madison instead of Monroe succeeded 
Jefferson, or why Franklin Pierce instead of 
some other cipher succeeded Mr. Fillmore, are 
wholly insignificant in comparison. 

To sum up the hundred years, this is the 
retrospect. On the first of January, 1801, the 
United States was a belt on the Atlantic sea- 
board of thirteen weak and poor communities, 
occupying territory which hardly ever ran back 
more than one hundred and fifty miles from the 
ocean. They liad united themselves together, 
but they did not yet know that they were a 
nation. Even the statesmen of that day would 
have written, " The United States are ready " 
or " are prepared," while an officer of ours 
to-day would say, " The United States is ready " 
or "is prepared." This nation in the gristle had 
added to itself the interior States of Vermont, 
Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. But these 
were but weak frontier communities, and, as a 
whole, the people on the seaboard had no con- 
ception of their possibilities. The map of the 
nation included immense regions which were 
practically in the possession of savages. Indeed, 
in the year 1801 there were in the territory west 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 33 

of the Alleghanies more Indians, wholly untamed, 
than people of European blood. 

So little did Livingston know what he was 
doing that, in the letter in wdiich he announced 
to President Jefferson Napoleon's amazing offer 
and his own conclusion of the great purchase, 
he says, " I have told them that we should not 
send an emigrant across the Mississippi in one 
hundred years " ! 

These men had the aid of the great mer- 
chants, some of whom are remembered and 
some forgotten. John Jacob Astor ^vas one; 
but the w^ord "Astor" did not then mean 
thousands of millions. And you might name 
by the side of the merchants Lewis, whose first 
name I am afraid the reader has forgotten, 
and Clark, who has probably not fared any 
better. 

Of these men Fulton and Whitney have w^on 
their way among the twenty-nine heroes in our 
New York " Hall of Fame." Fulton had eighty- 
six votes out of ninety-seven of the votes on the 
" Heroes." Whitney had sixty-nine. 

Napoleon startled Livingston when he pro- 
posed to sell to the United States the w^hole of 
Louisiana. The United States had not asked 
for it, had not wanted it. The United States 



34 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

did want the city of Orleans, and the whole 
eastern bank from our State of Mississippi to 
the Gulf of Mexico. That is, we had proposed 
to buy from France all that part of our present 
State of Louisiana which lies on the northeast 
side of the Mississippi. Under the treaty with 
England of 1783 we held all the country from 
the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, north of 
that parallel of 31 degrees which makes a jog 
in the map, and in a convenient, rough fashion 
makes a sort of letter L of our State of Louisi- 
ana. Now, to his amazement, Marbois offers to 
Livingston the reo;ion which is now western 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minne- 
sota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and 
Kansas, and everything west of these States as 
far as the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, we have 
not wanted advocates who claim that French 
Louisiana went farther than the Rocky Moun- 
tain range, even to the Pacific. 

Jefferson would never have dared to accept 
this magnificent offer. For he was pledged to 
the strictest construction of the Constitution. 
Until he died he dared not say that he was 
authorized to make this great purchase. But 
Livingston had no such scruples. He bravely 
accepted the proposal, only struggling to beat 



LIVINGSTON AND FULTON 35 

down the sum which he was to pay. To reas- 
sure Jefferson, Livingston told him that he had 
ah^eady secured such promises that we could 
" recoup " ourselves and get back all our fifteen 
million dollars by selling again everything west 
of the river. It hardly appears who it was with 
whom he made such a bargain. 

This is the man — the man to whose courao;e 
we owe half our empire, the man who, w^ith 
Fulton and the steamboat, gave the untold 
value to the deserts he bought — he is the man 
to whom we cannot give a niche or a bronze in 
our "Hall of Fame." 

For this magnificent purchase the country 
had to pay. The English house of Barings at 
once offered to negotiate the loan, by which 
Livingston was able to pay the money. But 
Congress must authorize the loan, must assume 
the responsibility of the purchase, and must 
provide a government for the city of Orleans 
and for the posts on the western side of the 
river. So the whole question of the advantage 
or disadvantage of the purchase was thrown 
open to the people of America, almost precisely 
as the question regarding the purchase of the 
Philippines had been thrown open since the 
Spanish war. 



36 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

In Congress and in the country the discussion 
went forward on Hues which show almost pain- 
fully the limits of human wisdom, especially of 
human foresight. Not one word to intimate 
that before twenty years were over the river 
steamers of the West will be rimniug up to the 
headwaters of the smallest " creek." Not one 
word to prophesy that a steady wave of popula- 
tion would carry the frontier seventeen miles 
farther with every new year.^ Least of all did 
any one prophesy that, far beyond those fertile 
river valleys, what the hunters called " deserts " 
were to become productive fields, and were to 
answer for half the world its prayer for daily 
bread. 

The reader of to-day hardly remembers, in- 
deed, that there were times when the market 
cost of a bushel of corn was spent when it had 
been carried forty miles. As late as 1830 I 
heard the jest which ridiculed an emigrant from 
Massachusetts by saying that he left his home a 
year before to go West with a jug of molasses to 
use in trade, and that he returned at the end of 
a year of adventure, having made enough in l)ar- 

1 This was the curious calculatiou of De Tocqueville in 1829. 
His calculation proved good witli singular accuracy for a gen- 
eration more. 



ELI WHITNEY 37 

gaining to pay him for the jug. For 3^ears after 
the century came in caricatures were printed on 
the seaboard ridiculing emigration. And the 
dominant tone in the warnings of statesmen 
against the ratification of the great purchase 
was the inconsistent fear that it would rob the 
seaboard of its inhabitants. If the country were 
so worthless, what danger was there that the 
shrewd men and women of the East should wish 
to cro there ? 

ELI WHITKEY 

As alwa3's happens when a great inventor as 
left to the world the result of his own persever- 
ance and ingenuity, there has arisen in the gen- 
eration which followed Whitney's death a set of 
screeching crickets, or cynics, call them which 
you please, who really think that someljody else 
made tliis great invention. There are plenty of 
people who will tell you that Fulton and Living- 
ston did not mtroduce steam navigation.^ And 
within the last thirty years there have appeared 
at the South plenty of people who will tell you 
of men who had invented the cotton-gin, whose 
invention Eli Whitney stole. 

1 As many as twenty of them have written to me since these 
words were printed in the Outlook. I am much obliged to 
them. — E. E. H. 



38 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



Very fortunately, a large body of Whitney's 
sad letters of that time have been preserved. 
They have lately been edited and pviblished by 
Dr. Hammond ; and nothing is now more clear 
than that each one of these so-called inventors is 




Eli Whitney. 
An engraving after the portrait by C. B. King. 

a pretender, and is one of the people who tried 
to steal Whitney's invention after he had brought 
it before the public. 

Stated briefly, the history is tliis : Eli Whitney 
graduated from Yale College in 1792, and, in- 
tending to be a teacher, he went to Georgia, 
where he was introduced to Mrs. Greene, the 



ELI WHITNEY 39 

widow of General Nathanael Greene, of Rhode 
Island. Greene had saved Georgia from its 
English enemies,. and the State of Georgia had 
presented to him a plantation, on which his 
widow was living. In the first winter of Whit- 
ney's stay there he was a tutor in her family. 
Some gentlemen at her table were speaking of 
the disadvantage to their State because the cost 
of preparing the cotton was so great. Every- 
body was wishing for a machine to clean the 
cotton from the seeds. Now, Whitney had 
mended Mrs. Greene's tambour frame. She said, 
" Here is Mr. Whitney, who will invent for you 
what you want." Whitney had at that time 
never seen a boll of cotton. He went to work 
at once, and the cotton-gin was the result. 

It is curious to observe, in our present line of 
study, that he himself went with the specifica- 
tions which were requisite for the patent, and 
visited Thomas Jefferson in Philadelphia. It is 
really the subject for a historical picture. Jef- 
ferson was Secretary of State under Washington. 
The department of invention was so small and 
the business of patents was so new that the 
granting of the patent depended upon the De- 
partment of State. So Whitne}^ called upon 
Jefferson in person and left his papers with him. 



40 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

It is an importaut incident, and it adds to what 
is even tlie j)atlios of the fact, that Jefferson 
scarcely alhides to the invention in his after life, 
and does not seem to have known that Whitney 
played a much more important part in the de- 
velopment of the fortunes of this country than 
he did himself. Yet Jefferson thought he was 
an inventor, and plumed himself on being a man 
of science, and was dabbling with scientific in- 
quiries from the beginning to the end of his 
life. 

THEN AND NOW 

It seems impossible to describe the change in 
every hal)it of life between those days and these 
days. Impossible even to imagine men's out- 
ward life then, more impossible to picture it. 
Here is the diary of my father's father, written 
three or four lines at a time, every night, at the 
desk where I wrote a few words not long ago, in 
the sacred study to which he called his boy from 
digging potatoes. He is a well-educated Christian 
gentleman, forty-nine years old ; one day he is 
reading Hebrew, one day he reads Greek, one 
day he reads " comedy," one day it is " attend 
to missionary pamphlets and read them," one 
day " rule most of a record," some " texts in 



THEN AND NOW 41 

textuary" or "texts in Bible order," one day 
"examine Greek criticisms." And these entries 
are all mixed in witli " Plant little Indian corn 
south of burying ground," " Begin to move little 
fence and plough a little," " Dung and ash in 
the holes for potatoes and ploughed about one 
acre of my orchard," " Killed two pigs, plant 
land, read news, etc.," " Cloudy Lord's Day, 
preached No. 2342, 2343, begin to ask children 
their catechism, evening extempore Colossians 
i. 19." Into the midst of such entries will come, 
" Sent horses for Nathan," and then " Nathan 
comes from Williams College," and the next 
day, " Afternoon with Nathan, bring cow from 
Mr. R. Lyman's, bought 211." 

All jom-neys were on horseback. When 
Nathan's fatlier and mother go to visit her 
father and mother, seventy miles, they go on 
horseback. When the Westhampton congrega- 
tion vote their minister ten weeks' vacation that 
he may go on a missionary journey into the 
frontier towns of Maine, he goes on horseback, 
riding sometimes twenty miles a day, sometimes 
more than forty. Two or three times in this 
journey he "puts up" his horse at an inn, and, 
in that case, he pays ninepence of New England 
currency, the Spanish real of that day, twelve 



42 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and one-half cents of ours. 1 found the price the 
same in New Hampshire in 1841. But for him- 
self, the missionary always, I believe, sleeps at 
some private house — a minister's house, if there 
be a minister. And this, observe, in charming 
disrespect of sectarian lines. Hard-shelled Cal- 
vinist as he is, if there is a Freewill Baptist 
meeting-house in the town, he preaches there 
when the "L.'s Day" comes round. 

The leisure of such a life is varied by making 
a spelling-book which he printed, arranged on 
an improved principle, and by the most sedulous 
daily intimacy in the homes of seven hundred 
23eople, scattered over a mountain townshijj of 
thirty square miles. 

When I visit the old homestead, which is a 
very dear place to me, they show me the grove 
of locust trees which he planted, the ever flow- 
ing stream of water from the hillside which he 
brought down into the generous open-air room 
where half the work of that house was done when 
I was a boy. And if I am fortunate enough 
to go to meeting there when the Lord's Day 
comes round, why, all my contemporaries tell 
me how this dear old saint taught them their 
catechisms, and all the younger people of after 
generations thank me for the blessing of this 



THEN AND NOW 43 

life as they have heard it from fathers or grand- 
fathers. 

One tries to make a picture of such hfe with- 
out much success. But one can see that in its 
simphcity there were elements of strength for 
those who grew up in such surroundings. " Lead 
us not into temptation." 

The Hampshire group of college boys made 
a rendezvous somewhere between Westhampton, 
Southampton, and Northampton, each on a horse 
which he had groomed himself, nay, probably, 
which he had watched, fed, and groomed since 
the colt was born. One or two younger brothers, 
also on horseback, accompanied the student party 
to brmg the horses home. As the bird flies, the 
distance is about forty-two miles. By the turn- 
pike, on which most of the journey was made, I 
suppose it was four or live miles longer. 

Sam Weller says of the gatekeepers on turn- 
pikes, " If they was gentlemen, you would call 
them misanthropes ; as they is not gentlemen, 
they takes to pike-keejDing." And in the soli- 
tudes of Berkshire County, as everywhere, the 
pike-keeper found that he had to meet that dis- 
favor which hangs over all collectors of revenue. 
As the merry troop of boy students approached tlie 
several pils.es, all would dismoimt and walk, driv- 



44 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ing all their horses before them. For there was 
no toll needed for footmen. Then they would ex- 
plahi to the pike-keeper that this was a drove of 
cattle which were to be paid for at so m\ich a head, 
the whole amount being much less, of course, than 
so many cavaliers in the saddle would pay. This 
little story always delighted us as children when 
my father told it. Perhaps all children and sav- 
ages rejoice in any evasion of the law ! And when 
we asked how this strike ended, he would say that 
if the pike-keeper were good-natured " he would 
give us a drink of cider all round, and we would 
consent to mount om- horses and pay the toll." 

In 1901 is the journey of Clarence Fitz-Mor- 
timer, as he takes the Pullman from Chicago to 
Williamstown, lighted up by any such picturesque 
adventure ? 

Perhaps the contrast between that life and our 
life most striking is the difference between the 
mails of the two periods and what they carried. 

Charles Elliott, the historian, when he was 
asked if he believed that Abraham lived to be 
a hundred and sixty, said : " Why not ? He had 
no bad whiskey to drink, no primaries to attend, 
and no newspapers to read." And Saint Marc 
Girardin, describing that earthly paradise of 
North Africa in the second century, says of the 



THEN AND NOW 45 

Roman gentlemen who lived there then : " Above 
all, tliey were without the mail, which is the bur- 
den of our modern civilization." The Williams- 
town boy and his father were not much harassed 
by the mail or by newspapers. To my grand- 
father a newspaper was so rare a visitor that 
he enters in the diary so severely condensed, 
" Read news," when the IIam2)shire Gazette, 
came round. Once in a term, perhaps, you 
find, " AYrote to Nathan," and as often, perhaps, 
''Letter from Nathan." "So happily, the days 
of Thalaba went b}'." Indeed, I observe that 
authors who want to describe serenity of mind 
generally agree in cutting off communication 
from the outward world. But when a news- 
paper did break through — yes! it had news 
worth telling. Still I do not suppose that in 
1801 the Hampshire Gazette or any Albany 
Weekly told of the murder of my poor friend 
Philip Nolan by the Spanish Governor of Texas. 
1 do not suppose, indeed, that it was mentioned 
in any newspaper in the United States. I do not 
suppose that in 1802 either of those newspapers 
spoke of the cotton crop, or of Eli Whitney's 
cotton-gin, or of the manufactm-e of cotton. 
Very likely the word " cotton " was not in either 
newspaper from January to December. 



1801-1807 



CHAPTER II 

1801-1807 
FAILURES AIsTI) FOLLIES 

TXTHOEVER studies the marvellons physical 
T T advance of the country in the first half 
of the century will find that those foin^ lines of 
physical success which we have been tracing 
suggest directions in which the United States 
made the most important physical progress. 

Meanwhile crickets were chu'ping and politi- 
cians were intriguing and voting, and, among 
the rest, Jefferson and Madison were Presidents 
in the first sixteen years of the century. And 
Congresses met and talked and went to their 
own place. A war w itli England got itself pro- 
claimed and dragged to an end. And so a good 
deal of what is called " history " got itself WTit- 
ten ; of which a good deal, especially when 
looked at under the microscope, is really enter- 
taining, though perhaps not very edifying. 
Meanwhile the country did as it always does. 

VOL. I. E 49 



50 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

It governed itself, and with a steady step 
marched forward and upward, as it has proved. 

Such memorials as I am bringing together 
must give some notice of failures as well as of 
victories. One must admit that the crickets 
chirped and the katydids discussed the biography 
of Catherine, although it never turned out that 
Catherine did anything, and that the crickets 
said anything that amounted to much. 

But we will devote two or three pages here 
partly to smoke and dust, partly to chirping and 
chattering, partly to Burr's plots and partly to 
Jefferson's plans. Such pages are always neces- 
sary in history. Thus, Mr. David Hume devotes 
more space to the story of the Countess of Salis- 
bury's garter than he does to the Black Death, 
which in the same year and the next swept away 
a quarter part of the people of England. And 
Dr. Lingard even manages, it is hard to tell how, 
to give a volume to the history of King James 
the Fool, without so much as referring to the 
Received Version of the English Bible, or to the 
settlement of Virginia and Plymouth. James 
Town and James River have no place in his 
history of King James. 



JAMES WILKINSON 51 

JAMES WILKINSON 

Jefferson was inaugurated on the 4th of 
March, 1801. Eighteen days after, when as 
yet nobody west of the Mississippi knew 
whether he were President or were not Presi- 
dent, Phihp Nolan, an adventurer from Ken- 
tucky, was killed in the neighborhood of what 
is now the town of Waco in Texas. He was 
murdered, I think ; for, while he was in Texas 
under the orders of the Spanish Governor of 
" Orleans," he was killed by the soldiers of Spain, 
acting under the orders of the Spanish Governor 
of Texas. He was an American citizen who 
had l)een the partner in trade with James Wil- 
kinson, the Major-General who commanded the 
army of the United States in the Mississippi 
Valley. We now know that at that time Wil- 
kinson was secretly in the pay of the King of 
Spain. But there is no reason for saying that 
Nolan ever knew of this bribery and treason. 

I became interested in this Captain Nolan, as 
he was generally called by the writers of his 
time, by mere accident, or, if you please, by 
inexcusable carelessness of mine. In the Civil 
War I was writing a story which I called " The 
Man Without a Country," in the hope of quick- 



52 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ening the National sentiment of the time. In 
studying for this story I read what I suppose 



;<^,^,*^>a^ ,^'^-^^, .^/^.,-:,C*' ^i.^^h^^^r^.'J'-^ -^^ 







^' S >--'.■ --::J^A^ 



C'. 






-^ 



/A". 









h~C£Uu 



I'HILIP XoLAX's SuiNATURE. 



Affixed to a receipt of merchandise, Sept. 28, 1795. From the original 
in the possession of the author. 



JAMES WILKINSON 53 

no man living except myself has read, this 
General Wilkinson's '" Memoirs." When I had 
to choose the name for my hero, recollecting 
Wilkinson's partner, Nolan, I called my man 
" Nolan." 

It was always suspected, as long as General 
Wilkinson lived, that he was a traitor, in the 
pay of the Spanish King. This was treason 
double refined, when Wilkinson was in com- 
mand of the American army in the Valley of 
the Mississippi, " the Legion of the West," as 
it was then called officially. It was precisely 
as if, on the 18tli of September, 1902, General 
Chaffee, in command at Manila, should be re- 
ceiving, by a secret arrangement, his annual 
remittance of three thousand dollars from the 
Emperor of Japan, or from the King of Spain. 

I say this was suspected while Wilkinson 
lived. Mysterious kegs of silver came up from 
"Orleans" while "Orleans" was still a Spanish 
town, and were addressed to General Wilkin- 
son. Once, and I believe twice, he was court- 
martialled, or there was a " court of inquiry." 
It seems to me a little queer that Nolan's re- 
ceipt, which I copy from the original, should 
speak so briefly of two thousand dollars' worth 
of " merchandise." But I do not know that 



54 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



the merchandise was Spanish dollars. Wilkin- 
son was an old fox, if foxes ever cover their 




General James Wilkinson. Philip Xolan's Partner. 

From an etching by Max Rosenthal after the por- 
trait by C. W. Peale. 

tracks, and he had covered his so well that the 
charges were never proved. 

He had the prestige which his service in the 
Revolution commanded. He was one of Gates's 
aides at Saratoga, and when I saw Wilkinson's 
papers in 1876, there were among them two 
autograph notes from Burgoyne to Gates, one 



JAMES WILKINSON 55 

proposing a conference with a view to surrender, 
and another arranging the terms for the final 
ceremony. Somehow or other, he did cover his 
tracks in his treasons, and was acquitted by the 
courts. The three vohimes of his " Memoirs " 
are seasoned all along by references to these 
trials, and by lame explanations or excuses. 
And Wilkinson died without public disgrace. 
I believe that he was as false to Aaron Burr 
as he was to the country. 

But time rolled on, and time sometimes brings 
its revenges. In the prosperous days before the 
Civil War, the State of Louisiana w^as collecting 
the materials for its romantic early history. 
Mr. Charles Gayarre, one of our distinguished 
historians, was sent to Spain to follow out the 
traces of that short period of the eighteenth 
century wdien the French had transferred their 
great province of Louisiana to Spanish control. 
The Spanish Government opened its archives 
freely to Mr. Gayarre, and there he found, from 
year to year, the full details of this infamous 
treason, beginning as earl}^ as 1788. The King 
of Spain regularly paid Wilkinson two or three 
thousand dollars a year while Wilkinson com- 
manded our " Legion of the West." Tliis the 
papers in the Spanish archives make certain. 



56 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Mr. Gayarre told me in 1876 how it hap- 
pened that such nnboimded confidence was 
placed in him by his Spanish friends. He 
went out to Madrid with proper introductions 
from our Secretary of State and from the Gov- 
ernor of Louisiana. Our minister, Romulus 
Saunders presented these papers, and then Mr. 
Gayarre waited. But niatiana seemed to be 
the word. He did not get forward at all. At 
last he wrote back to our historian, Prescott, 
and said that he made no progress. Prescott 
wrote at once to Madrid, to his friend Gayan- 
gos, the accomj^lished scliolar, to whom all of 
us who care about American history are so 
largely indebted. Prescott wrote and asked 
Gayangos, in Spain, why they did not help his 
friend, Mr. Gayarre. To which Gayangos re- 
plied : " How should we know he was your 
friend ? We do not fancy your Mr. Saunders, 
and we have had no other introduction. But 
if he is your friend, he shall see everything." 
And Gayarre did see everything : and that is 
the way that we know of Wilkinson's treason. 
I suppose there is a certain etiquette among 
governments which imposes a certain time limit 
on the revelation of such state secrets. I know 
that in 1859 I was not permitted in London 



JAMES WILKINSON 57 

to see papers of Avliicli our lamented frieucl 
Benjamin Stevens has since printed facsimile 
coj)ies. 

So we are now happily sure of Wilkinson's 
treason. I say " happily " because it always 
pleases me to refer to it when grumblers tell 
me that to-day and 3'esterday compare unfavora- 
bl}^ for political morality w4th the times of the 
men of the Revolution. 

And T am apt to say that it does not s})eak 
well for Jefferson's statesmanship, or his knowl- 
edge of men, that for eight years he maintained 
such a rascal as Wilkinson in a post so impor- 
tant. He knew that Wilkinson had betrayed 
Burr. He must have suspected that Wilkinson 
had been the tool of S})ain. He could easily 
have found it out had he wanted to, and yet he 
kept him in this important military command. 

The history of this box of Wilkinson's papers, 
almost invaluable, is in itself dramatic. My dis- 
tinguished friend, John Mason Brown, of Ken- 
tucky, had told me of the existence of the 
]Mpers. I worked over them at Louisville for 
an afternoon in April, 1876. I took a few 
notes from them, but I was confident that the 
War Department would buy them from the 
owner, so that I took only a few notes. As 



58 MEMORIES OP A HUNDRED YEARS 

soon as I returned to Boston, I addressed a letter 
to the Department on tlie subject, but the time 
was unfortunate, and the Department did noth- 
ing. Meanwhile, the owner of the trunk had con- 
ceived very exaggerated notions of the value of 
the documents. Indeed, even to Philistines the 
autographs of Burgoyne, of Gates, of Burr, of 
Hamilton, of Philip Nolan, and of the New 
Orleans Clark would have brought large prices 
at auction. But no buyer appeared, and only 
two years ago the owner of these materials of 
history carried the box out to a vacant lot in 
Louisville, built a fire around it, and burned all 
the papers. In this melodramatic sacrifice of 
his, the precious autographs went to the skies 
in tlie form of highly diluted carbon. 

GENEEAL EATON AND DERNE 

The humor, if one may call it so, of Jeffer- 
son's administration comes in where he is con- 
stantly obliged to take exactly the part which 
he and his had always condemned before he 
came to the throne. This comes almost to 
burlesque when we find an American army 
really crossing northern Africa for the capture 
of the city of Derne — which American army 
supposed itself to be moving by Jeiferson's 



GENERAL EATON AND DERNE 



59 



orders. The whole transaction, has in it an 
element of absurdity which makes the politi- 
cians drop it from memory as something which 
it is better to say nothing about. 

But it left one funny remembrancer of itself 
which still exists in Egypt. In the year 1803 
our navy was 
engaged in 
that war with 
Tripoli in 
which the in- 
fant navy was 
baptized. It 
proved that 
there was a 
certain Hamet 
Caramelli who 
thous:ht he 
was the law- 
ful heir to the 
crown of Tripoli. Our young readers will think 
that members of this family burnt sugar-cane 
for their young friends. Look in the dictionary 
and you will find cana-mella or cana-mellis. He 
made interest with our diplomatic agents in the 
Mediterranean, and proposed to them a military 
expedition by which he should oust the reigning 




Gi:.\KitAL Eatux. 
Engraving by Hamlin. 



60 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



Pasha of Tripoli, with whose vessels our vessels 
were fighting. This proposal of his came to 
Jefferson and his Cabinet at a time when they 
thought themselves sufficiently annoyed by the 
complications of this naval war. 

One of those wild geese who are born to 




Gen. William Eaton and Hamet CABAjyiELLi. 
On the Desert of Barca, approaching Deme. 

bring trouble to governments, " a Connecticut 
Yanlvee," Mr. Adams calls him, a man named 
William Eaton, had taken this matter in charge. 
He was our consul at Tunis, about four hundred 
miles from Tripoli. He fell in with Hamet 
Caramelli, and came to America to tell the 
President that it would be a good plan for 



GENERAL EATON AND DERNE Gl 

US to restore him to his place as rightful Pasha, 
and that then grateful Hamet and his party 
would uiake any treaty he liked with us. I 
had the o[)portunity thirty ^ears ago to read all 
Eaton's papers. He was a daring fellow, angry 
with people who did not take his views of 
thino-s. 

It is clear enough that at Washington he had 
received that sort of attention which timid gov- 
ernments are apt to hestow on spirited soldiers 
and sailors. Virtually he was told that if he 
succeeded in any plans of his in the Mediter- 
ranean, the Government would take all the 
credit, and if he failed he w^oidd have to pay 
all the penalty. Many an officer before Eaton 
has found himself in the same condition, and 
some officers since. But that Jefferson did not 
throw him over, or mean to throw him over, is 
clear enough, because he appointed Eaton our 
naval agent in the Mediterranean and sent him 
back. He appeared at Cairo the 8th of Decem- 
ber, 1804, and hunted up Hamet. He brought 
him to Alexandria, where Hamet and he col- 
lected an army of five hundred men, of whom 
one hundred, who were called Christians, were 
recruited in Alexandria. "At about the time 
when President Jefferson w^as delivering his 



62 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

second iuaugural address, the naval agent led 
his little army into the desert with the courage 
of Alexander the Great, to conquer an African 
kingdom." These are Mr. Adams's words. 

Briefly told, Eaton and Hamet marched their 
army five hundred miles across the desert up to 
the city of Derne. They frightened the reigning 
Pasha very badly, and our fleet under Commo- 
dore Barron was also frio-htenino; him. He made 
a treaty, gave up the prisoners whom he had, and 
we had the satisfaction of teaching Europe how 
these barbarians were to be handled. But poor 
Hamet Caramelli was left out in the cold, and 
poor Eaton was left with a claim upon the Gov- 
ernment which he found it hard to collect. I 
am sorry to say that he died a drunkard in 1811. 

All Eaton's papers are, I suppose, at this mo- 
ment in the large trunk from which I took them 
when I read them in the j-ear 1864. It is a 
pity that the War Department should not have 
them, but I have always found it rather hard to 
make the War Department pick up papers which 
bear on our old history. At the time I knew of 
them they were the property of the great auto- 
graph collector. Dr. Sprague, of Albany. 

A memorial of Eaton which still survives is 
the relic in " the American colony at Cairo " of 



GENERAL EATON AND DERNE 63 

his little army. All these hundred " Christians," 
so called, who marched with the four hundred 
Arabs to conquer Derne, obtained in that march 
the rights of American citizens for themselves, 
for their children, and their children's children 
— rights which, in a country wliich has been 
governed as Egypt has been until within a few 
years, have been of the first importance and 
value. When my brother Charles became resi- 
dent agent of the United States in Egypt in 
1864, he found that he had quite a number of 
these queer " Americans " on his hands, none of 
whom had ever seen America and none of whom 
could speak a word of English.^ If they got 
into trouble they came to our consuls to protect 
them, and they could not be tried in any but a 
consular court. My brother asked me to look 
up Eaton's history for him. I found that all the 

^ Charles Avrote me while he resided in Egypt that he had 
the day before sat as judge in a trial of an •' American," who 
had been stealing in the Egyptian post-office. " The man spoke 
Arabic ; the witnesses testified in Arabic, Turkish, and Coptic ; 
the lawyers on both sides conducted their pleas in Italian, and 
I decided the case in French." The only language of which 
not one word was spoken by any accident was the language of 
the country to which the judge and the case belonged. 

My brother redeemed all this system of trials from this 
absurdity. He drew up the plan by which a special court 
authorized by the Egyptian Government now tries all such 
prisoners. 



64 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

papers which Eaton considered important had 
been preserved, and from them I was able to 
read the very curious history of the episode 
which it was convenient for Jefferson to have 
forgotten, and wliich has won for itself so little 
place in the history of the century. People who 
negotiated the treaty with the Pasha of Tripoli 
say definitely that the attack on the eastern 
side of the province was an efficient agency in 
bringing the autocratic Pasha to terms. 

I wonder how many of the thousands of 
people who pass through Derne Street in Boston 
every day, now that it makes one side of the 
beautiful State House Park, know that it cele- 
brates the only conquest of their country on 
either of the three old continents ! 

Partly from ignorance and partly from the 
old-fashioned etiquettes, the arrangements which 
John Adams or his cabinet made for a war with 
France are singularly slurred over by most of 
the historians. It is rather droll to think or 
speak of President Adams as the first of •■' fili- 
busters." But that is just what he was. Un- 
willingly enough, he had made Hamilton the 
commander of the army under Washington. Of 
the intrigues attending this appointment there 
is enough and more than enough in the older 



PHILIP NOLAN 65 

histories. What they do not tell us is, that the 
infant town of Cincinnati was made the gather- 
ing point for the new regiments and that Hamil- 
ton expected, wished, or meant to lead the army 
which was recruiting there down the river to 
the capture of " Orleans " and to cooperate with 
General Miranda in his proposed overthrow of 
the Spanish rule on the southern side of the 
Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The 
flatboats which were to take this expedition 
down the river were built in Cincinnati. Hamil- 
ton and Wilkinson were in full correspondence 
as to its details when the peace was made with 
France. Observe, that Orleans was then a Span- 
ish toAvn and that it was to be captured by an 
American force because America was at war 
with France. I saw Hamilton's letters in Wil- 
kinson's chest in April, 1876. But there is not 
a word about this plan in Schouler's history, 
hardly an allusion to it in Hildreth, and you 
have to come down to Lodge's " Life of Hamil- 
ton" in 1882 before you find its importance 
alluded to. 

PHILIP NOLAN" 

I return to the history of Philip Nolan, be- 
cause, as it proved, it worked its way in to that 
hatred of Spain in the West, and particularly in 

VOL. I. F 



66 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the southwest, of which we have seen the out^ 
come in our own time. As the reader knows, 
the first explorer of Texas was Philip Nolan. 
And it was there that he was killed on the 22d 
day of March, 1801. The Spanish Governor of 
Chihuahua who took out his overwhelming force 
against a little army of twenty men hunting 
horses, was one of the Spanish officers who had 
been frightened to death. Nolan himself had 
written as early as 1797, "I look forward to the 
conquest of Mexico by the United States, and I 
expect that my friend and patron the General 
will in such event give me a conspicuous com- 
mand." This was at the time when our troubles 
with France were brewing. John Adams was 
in the first year of his Presidency ; Washington 
was to be really commander-in-chief of the army, 
but Hamilton was to take command of what was 
eventually called " The New Army " at Cincin- 
nati. These details were probably not deter- 
mined on when Nolan wrote those words, but 
the plan was in the air, in 1798. A considerable 
part of the new army gathered at Cincinnati 
which they called Fort Washington. Had Mi- 
randa's plans worked better, Hamilton and Wil- 
kinson would probably have captured " Orleans " 
with this western army, when in 1799, the high 



PHILIP NOLAN 67 

water of the Mississippi brought them down. 
The letters between Hamilton and A\'ilkinson 
Mdiich I read in 1876 went into all the details 
of this plan. It was abandoned because England 
was so slow in giving any support to Miranda. 

The real history of the real Philip Nolan is 
this. He seems to have grown up as a boy in 
Frankfort or Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington 
was one of the oldest towns in Kentucky and 
Frankfort is the capital of the state. One of 
my friends there has sent me a photograph of 
the old Court House which I suppose was in 
existence in Nolan's time. The well-known 
story is that the first settlers of Lexington 
named their town because they had just heard 
of the Battle of Lexington in 1775. If, as I 
suppose, Captain Nolan was about thirty-five 
when he was killed, he must have been born 
before the settlement ; but his father was among 
the early settlers of the stale and I think he 
nnist have spent his boyhood there. 

At an early age, however, he turns up in 
'' Orleans " and is evidently a person of some 
importance in the affairs of the little city. Since 
1763 Louisiana had been a Spanish possession, 
having been transferred from France to Spain in 
the treaties at the end of the Seven Years' War. 



68 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

But the reader must observe that it was not 
transferred to the Spanish " Department of the 
Colonies." On this misfortune hung poor Nolan's 
life, as it proved. 

For the Spanish Governor at " Orleans " was 
named bj the Department of " Foreign Affairs " 
at Madrid. I think he did not even report to the 
viceroy in Mexico, and it would seem as if there 
were a jealousy between the Colonial Bureau 
and the " Foreign Affairs " at Madrid. Now 
Mexico and Texas belonged to the " Colonial 
Affairs," sometimes called the " Department of 
the Indies," and Louisiana with " Orleans " to 
the " Foreign Affairs." 

Here was Philip Nolan then, a young Ameri- 
can, resident in " Orleans " at the time of the 
Spanish Governors Casa Calvo and De Nava. 
Orleans was the port of the whole Mississippi 
Vallej^, and there were many Americans there. 
Daniel Clark was there, Mrs. General Gaines's 
father. Oliver Pollock was there, — the same 
Pollock who sent to Pittsburg powder for Wash- 
ington as early as 1775. And now and then 
General James Wilkinson was there. All of 
these men knew Philip Nolan, and there is some 
trace of him in their correspondence. He wrote 
a good hand, as the reader may see. He sjoelled 



PHILIP NOLAN 69 

well, and a generation earlier this qualification 
seemed to Harriet Byron to show that a man 
was a gentleman. He was in good society, and 
in the year 1800 he married into the family of Mr. 
Miner, one of the best American families on the 
river. He is always spoken of with great respect, 
almost with regard. I am sorry to say that his 
personal appearance does not appear to corrobo- 
rate the impression thus given. Mr. Miner once 
showed me a miniature of him, elegantly set in 
gold, which represents rather a disagreeable bluif 
face, apparently Irish, of a man about thirty. 
He is dressed in the picture in a blue coat, which 
may have been a soldier's coat. He is generally 
called Captain Nolan. But I cannot find that 
he had been in any army. His correspondence 
with Wilkinson, so far as we have it, indicates a 
good deal of mercantile experience. 

Strange to say, it was not considered nnbe- 
coming that a Major-General, commanding an 
army, should be engaged constantly in commer- 
cial enterprises which took him and his agents 
into a foreign city. Through all those years at 
the end of the century, Wilkinson was engaged 
in such enterprises in "Orleans" and this Captain 
Nolan was his confidential commercial correspon- 
dent. If he had not been, I should never have 



70 MEMOEIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

cared anything about him, and this reader would 
not now be reading tliese lines. But Nolan 
was so engaged. And in General "Wilkinson's 
" Memoirs," which, as I have said, is a sad gali- 
matias of fact and fiction always flavored by 
fraud and folly, he refers again and again to " his 
friend, Captain Nolan." In particular, whenever 
there is an important document which cannot be 
found, Wilkinson says it was lost at the time of 
the death of Captain Nolan. Now, as I have said, 
when I was writing my story of " A Man with- 
out a Country," in 1863, 1 wanted a name for my 
imagined hero. It must be a Kentucky name, a 
name remembered in the lower Mississippi Val- 
ley ; the man must know of Canadian intrigues 
at the North, and Spanish intrigues at the South. 
I recollected Wilkinson's friend, — he is the sort 
of Mrs. Jawkins for Wilkinson, — " Captain 
Nolan who was killed in Texas." Here was a 
good name for me, and I called my " Man with- 
out a Country " Nolan. In the book he speaks 
once and again of "his cousin" Stephen Nolan 
who was killed in Texas, and of " his brother " 
who was killed in Texas. The mixture of cousin 
and brother Avas intentional, by way of giving 
plausibility to the story, for the words are used 
by two persons and a mistake in such a trifle is 



PHILIP NOLAN 71 

not unnatural. All the time I had the impres- 
sion that Wilkinson's friend was Captain Stephen 
Nolan, and I called him so. The matter seemed 
of no consequence whatever, and I did not think 
to look up the name. If he was named Stephen 
his brother might have been named Philip. I 
had once been in an Episcopal church on Saint 
Stephen's Day, when, by accident, the " Rector" 
told the story of Saint Philip and fitted it on 
Saint Stephen. This made me think that I 
might fairly name my man Philip Nolan and 
say he had a brother or a cousin named 
Stephen. 

Alas ! and alas ! more than six months after 
my story was printed, indeed when hundreds 
of thousands of copies of it had introduced my 
Pliilip Nolan to the world, as I was looking 
in A\'ilkinson's " Memoirs " for something else;, 
I found to my horror and dismay that the real 
man was named Philip and not Stephen ! 

This accounted at once for many things. I 
had had a message from a lady who said she 
was a sister of Philip Nolan and wished she 
knew more about him. Om^ army was in 
possession of New Orleans at that time. It 
Avas a little after the fall of Vicksburg. The 
Miner family and gentlemen interested in the 



72 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

early history of Louisiana had been writing to 
nie about Captain Nolan who had been killed 
at Waco in 1801, as if he were Philip Nolan 
who appears in my story for the first time in 
the smnmer of 1805. 

I am sorry to say that Captain Philip Nolan, 
who, on the whole, I like and believe in, was 
the correspondent, in some sense the confiden- 
tial correspondent, of his '' ]3atron " General 
Wilkinson. But there is no evidence that he 
knew of Wilkinson's relations with the Span- 
ish King. The reader should recollect that for 
a part of this time. New Orleans and Louisiana 
were Spanish territory, and that a Spanish 
Governor held the city of Orleans aud that 
neighborhood for the Spanish King. Now in 
truth the real Philip Nolan had found out, I 
do not know how, that there were herds of 
wild horses in Texas. He could see with his 
eyes that the Spanish soldiers in Louisiana 
needed horses. He went to the Spanish Gov- 
ernor and told him that if the Government 
would take from him as many horses as were 
wanted and would give him a permit for the 
purpose, he would organize a moimted party 
and bring horses from Texas to Orleans. The 
governor was well pleased, made the contract. 



PHILIP NOLAN 73 

gave the permit, and Nolan with a party went 
up into the Red River and beyond, corralled 
tlie horses, brought them into Orleans, and 
was paid for them. It w'as a good sjjeculation 
for all parties. 

It was so successful that another year Nolan 
did it again ; for the Governor made a second 
contract, gave a permit a second time, and 
Nolan brought in another drove of horses. I 
think that Wilkinson was concerned in the 
pecuniary part of one of these adventures. I 
know that Nolan says in one of his letters 
that General Wilkinson had promised him a 
commission if the United States ever made 
war with the Spaniards. It was at this time 
that Jefferson, who was then Vice-President of 
the United States, heard of him, and wrote him 
a letter about these wild horses. A press copy 
of this letter is now at Washington. We know 
that Nolan replied to this letter, — but his reply 
cannot now l:>e found in the correspondence of 
the American Philosophical Society, for whom 
Jefferson wrote. There is, however, another 
paper by him on the sign language of the 
Indians. I used that language, therefore, in my 
novel of "Philip Nolan's Friends." 

At that time, or about that time, Nolan estab- 



74 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

lished his residence in or near the infant town of 
Natchez. Here he married Miss Fanny Lintot. 
By this marriage he was connected with ]\Ir. 
Miner, and to Mr. Miner and the ladies of his 
family I am inde1:>ted for much of my informa- 
tion in regard to him. Dr. Dinet of Temple in 
Texas tells me that it was while he lived in 
Natchez, in 1799, that he published a description 
of Texas, the first written in English, and 
printed it at Natchez. Alas ! no copy of this 
interesting tract is known to exist. But the 
map which Nolan drew for it has been copied 
in Bulletin No. 45 of the U. S. Geological Survey. 

Poor Nolan tried the adventure in Texas once 
too often. At the end of 1800 the Spanish 
Governor, De Nava, — the same who had given 
him his passports before, was acting as Governor 
ad interim. He wanted horses again. Nolan 
again agreed to go and bring him some. And 
again he received authority from the Government 
to go. But let the reader remember that this is 
a governor appointed by the Spanish Foreign 
Office and not by the Colonial Office, and while 
the Foreign Office has the oversight of Louisiana, 
the Colonial Office is responsible for Texas. 

Nolan enlisted his men, about twenty of them. 
We have the names of all of them. They went 



PHILIP NOLAN 75 

up as far as Walnut Hills, where they were in 
American territory ; and here Nolan was sum- 
moned by the United States officer in command, 
who did not propose that an American body of 
men should go filibustering into Spanish tciri- 
tory. As soon as they crossed the Mississippi, 
they would be on Spanish soil. Nolan answered 
with perfect frankness. He showed his permit 
from the Spanish Governor. It was put on 
record in the United States court. The United 
States authorities saw that things were all right, 
and he and his friends crossed the river and 
entered upon Spanish ground. 

I suppose that it was at this time tliat he saw 
his wife for the last time. In 1876 I saw an 
old white-haired negro on Mr. Miner's planta- 
tion who as a child had seen the cortege depart. 
The old man told me he remembered bidding 
Captain Phil good-by. 

My friend, Mr. William Howell Reed, had told 
me in 1864, that near City Point in Virginia he 
had seen the grave of Philip Nolan, a black 
soldier of a Louisiana regiment, wliicli had been 
brought from Louisiana as our army advanced 
upon Richmond. I suppose that he had been 
born on the Miner plantation, and that his name 
may have been borrowed from our Captain 



76 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Nolan, or from his son who was born after his 
death. 

My story of " The Man without a Country," of 
which my Philip Nolan was the hero, was pub- 
lished in December, 18 Go. When Grant's army 
entered Jackson, in Mississippi, in the same year, 
an officer of an Ohio regiment went into the 
State House. Among some loose papers there, 
he found the original record of the real Captain 
Nolan's examination by the United States 
authorities to which 1 have referred. The 
reader must observe that at that time this 
gentleman knew nothing of my Captain Nolan, 
because my story was not printed till many 
months after. When my story was printed, a 
gentleman in our army sent that number of the 
Atlantic Monthly to the ladies of Mr. Miner's 
family who were living at Concordia, just oppo- 
site Natchez. As Miss Miner advanced in the 
story she cried out in deep excitement that she 
had found " A story about Uncle Philip Nolan." 
For Fanny Lintot, Captain Nolan's w^ife, was 
this lady's grandaunt, and the wedding had 
taken place in the Concordia of that day. The 
Concordia of the next century, which entertained 
in its time Lafayette and Aaron Burr and every- 
body else of distinction who passed that way, has 



PHILIP NOLAN 77 

been unfortunately burned down since the publi- 
cation of tliese papers began. 

To return to the real Captain Nolan. He 
and his merry men bade good-by to Fanny Lin- 
tot and the rest, and rode gayly up the valley of 
the Red River, stopping, I believe, at Nachitoches, 
where I think he was examined again by the 
Spanish Governor. He had lived in Nachitoches 
at one time and another. I have the original 
record in Spanish of a judicial inquiry made by 
Spanish officers in which his washerwoman and 
her husband and everybody else, you might say, 
is cross questioned about Captain Nolan. Poor 
Nolan was dead before the inquiry was over ; 
but this they did not know. My friend, Judge 
Emery, was good enough to translate this narra- 
tive for me, and the Mississippi Historical Society 
has printed his translation. If Nolan did show 
his passports at Nachitoches, they were still all 
right ; for all of them were still under the 
dominion of the Spanish Foreign Office. But 
Texas begms some fifty miles west of Nachi- 
toches. As soon as Nolan crossed the Sabine 
into Texas, he was under the dominion of the 
viceroy of Mexico, and the Governor appointed 
by him, and here danger began. 

Of this whole journey, we have the story in 



78 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

a good deal of detail by Ellis Bean, one of his 
men. This story is reprinted in " Yoakum's 
History of Texas." Here is the narrative by 
Bean : — 

" In four days more it was our misfortune to 
be attacked by a hundred and fifty Spaniards 
sent by the commandant at Chihuahua. He 
was general commandant of the five northeast- 
ern internal provinces, and called Don Nimesio 
de Salcedo. The troops that came were piloted 
by Indians from Nacogdoches that came witli 
them. They surrounded our camp about one 
o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd of March, 
1801. They took the five Spaniards and one 
American that were guarding our horses, leav- 
ing but twelve of us, including Caesar. We were 
all alarmed by the tramping of their horses ; 
and, as day broke, without speaking a word, 
they commenced their fire. After about ten 
minutes our gallant leader Nolan was slain by 
a musket-ball which hit hini in the head. In 
a few minutes after they began to fire grape- 
shot at us : they had brought a small swivel on 
a mule. We had a pen that we had built of 
logs, to prevent the Indians from stealing from 
us. From this pen we returned their fire until 
about nine o'clock. We then had two men 



PHILIP NOLAN 79 

wounded and one killed. I told my companions 
we ought to charge on the cannon and take it. 
Two or three of them agreed to it, but the rest 
a]ji)eared unwilling. I told them it was at most 
but death ; and if we stood still, all would doubt- 
less be killed ; that we must take the cannon or 
retreat. It was agreed that we should retreat. 
Our number was eleven, of which two were 
wounded. The powder that we could not put 
in our horns was given to C»sar to carr}^, while 
the rest were to make use of their arms. So we 
set out through a prairie, and shortly crossed a 
small creek. While we were defending our- 
selves, Caesar stopped at the creek and sur- 
rendered himself wdth the ammunition to the 
enemy. Of the two wounded men, one stopped 
and gave himself up, the other came on with us. 
There were then nine of us that stood the fire of 
the enemy, on both sides of us, for a march of 
half a mile. We were so fortunate, that not a 
man of us got hurt, though the balls played 
around us like hail." 

The next day, however, they surrendered to 
their pursuers and were marched to Nacog- 
doches ; but after a month, when they were ex- 
pecting to be sent home, they were sent to San 
Antonio, then to San Luis Potosi, where they 



80 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

stayed one year and four months, then to Chi- 
huahua, where they lived for many years. A 
regular trial was given them, of which the pro- 
ceedings are extant. Don Pedro Kamos de Verea 
conducted the defence (will not some Texan 
name a county for him ?) and the men were ac- 
quitted. The judge, De Vavaro, ordered their 
release, January 23, 1804 ; but Salcedo, who 
was then in command of these provinces, coun- 
termanded the decree of acquittal, and sent the 
papers to the King in Spain. 

The King, by a decree of February 23, 1807, 
ordered that one out of five of Nolan's men 
should be hung, and the others kept at hard 
labor for ten years. Let it be observed that this 
is the royal decree for ten men who had been 
acquitted by the court which tried them. 

When the decree arrived at Chihuahua, one of 
the ten prisoners, Pierce, was dead. The new 
judge pronounced that only one of the remaining 
nine should suffer death, and Salcedo aj)proved 
this decision. 

On the 9th of November, therefore, 1807, the 
adjutant-inspector, with De Verea, the prisoner's 
counsel, proceeded to the barracks, where they 
were confined, and read the King's decision. A 
drum, a glass tumbler, and two dice were 



PHILIP NOLAN 81 

brought, the prisoners kuelt before the drum, 
and were bhndfolded. 

Ephraim Blackburn, the oldest prisoner, took the fatal 

glass and dice, and threw 3 and 1 = 4 

Lucian Garcia threw 3 and 4 = 7 

Joseph Reed threw 6 and 5 = 11 

David Fero threw 5 and 3 = 8 

Solomon Cooley threw 6 and 5 = 11 

Jonah (Tony) Walters threw 6 and 1 = 7 

Charles Ring threw 4 and 3 = 7 

Ellis Bean threw 4 and 1 = 5 

William Dawlin threw 4 and 2 = 6 

And then and there poor Ephraim Bhxckbiirn 
was led out and hanged in the sight of the 
others. Blackburn is, I am told, a Virginian 
name, — and I made some effort once to find 
the family to which this poor martyr belonged, 
but without success. 

Only a few months before this Zebulon Pike, 
an officer of our army who had accidentally 
crossed the Spanish frontier in his explorations 
of our Western territory, fell in Avith Fero, one 
of these men, with old CaBsar, another of them, 
and had some connmmicatiou with a third. 
Pike was so much interested in tlicm that he 
wrote a letter to General Salcedo, the commander 
of the department of which Chihuahua was the 
capital. He begged that something might be 

VOL. 1. — G 



82 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

done toward '' restoring those jDOor fellows to 
their liberty, their friends and country " ; and he 
intercedes particularly for Fero who had served 
under Pike's father. In this letter to Salcedo, 
Pike says that they entered the territory of the 
Spanish in a clandestine manner, in violation of 
the treaties between, the two governments. But 
he says " the men of the party were innocent, 
believing that Nolan had passports from the 
Spanish Government." We know from the 
testimony of the United States Court at Natchez 
that this statement of Nolan's to them was true. 
But unfortunately, Salcedo, in the whole of the 
business, before Nolan's death and after it, had 
proved himself to be very much the brute. From 
Pike's rejDort, and, indeed, from every other 
report which came from the valley of the Rio 
Grande or Northern Mexico, news of the Spanish 
cruelty to these poor felloAvs Avas brought to 
the Southwest. Anybody who cared an3^thing 
about it, as the Miners for instance, into whose 
family Nolan had married, believed, as I believe, 
that the Spanish authorities at Orleans had given 
Nolan a passport to go into Texas. But the 
curse of red tape, which seems a small curse, 
was upon Spain, as it always has been since the 
days of Spartacus. As has been intimated, Texas 



PHILIP NOLAN 83 

was under the control of the Department of the 
Indies, wliich had no more to do with the Depart- 
ment of State than it liad to do with tlie dejiart- 
ment of canals in the pla-net Mars. Whatever 
one department ordered, the other department 
blocked if it could, as is the manner of " depart- 
ments," and so poor Philip Nolan was killed by 
the Governor of Texas, though he had the per- 
mission of the Governor of Louisiana to go into 
Texas. The Southwest, however, charged this 
cruelty, not to red tape, but to Spanish falsity 
and treachery. And the blood of Philip Nolan 
and Ephraim Blackburn became, as I believe, 
the seed which, when it ripened, fed the various 
assaults upon Texas that separated Texas from 
the Mexican confederacy. It is for this reason 
that I am always trying to urge my friends in 
Texas to erect a statue to Philip Nolan, either 
in the beautiful capitol of their own State, or 
in the gallery of heroes in Washington. 

Of this infamy, as it now seems, from every 
written docmnent of the time, the greater part 
transpired in the first eight years of the century; 
the years of Jefferson's administration. Jeffer- 
son had himself, as we have seen, been a corre- 
spondent of Captain Nolan's, had written to him, 
and had received his answers. Nolan, with 



84 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

nearly twenty other Americans, who carried the 
permission of a Spanish Governor, had been 
treated in this way by the Spanish Government. 
Jefferson must have known of the transaction. 
Pike must have reported to him what he saw 
and heard. Yet it would appear that he ne\er 
uttered a word for the freedom of these men 
or made any inquiries regarding them. 

Another man would have had something to 
say to Godoy. Any President of the United 
States to-day who should neglect such a matter 
would be impeached. But Jefferson, till he died, 
was let alone. 

All the same, there were twenty households of 
Americans which had sent out, each one young 
man,^ to be the victims of this cruelty. From 
year to year there trickled back messages from 
Fero, from Blackburn, from Bean, and the 
rest, which told of the fate of these wretched 
slaves, whose nnmljer was smaller and smaller. 
Such stories passed from house to house, and 
from village to village. And so there grew up 
in the Southwest a vindictive hatred of Spain 
which showed itself as soon as the struo:o:les for 
Mexican independence began. 

1 De Nava's successor, in his letters home, says thirty-two, 
but I do not know why. Bean gives the names of his twenty. 



PHILIP NOLAN 85 

The Spain which broke faith with John Haw- 
kins in 15G7, which poisoned Dehiware and his 
companions at Madeira in IGll, which had 
hanged the Huguenots on the coast of Florida ; 
the Spain of the Inquisition ; the Spain of 
Pizarro and of Cortes, was the same Spain to 
the friends of Philip Nolan and his companions 
when the century began. When in 1870 a 
Spanish Governor shot seventy passengers from 
the V'mj'uiius in Santiago without even the form 
of a trial, those men in the Southwest said, 
"This is the same old Spain ! " When in 1897 
Wejder committed worse atrocities, these people 
said, "• It is the same old Spain." 

We in the North could not conceive of this. 
To us, Spain was the Spain of Isabella II, our 
true friend in the Kebellion ; the Spain of 
Gayangos, of Navarrete, of Irving, of Cervantes 
and Gil Bias ; the Sjiain of Sancho Panza and 
of Don Quixote. We did not hate Spain. But 
the people of the Southwest did. To them, 
Spain was the S[)ain of murder, of fraud, and 
of violated promise. 

And so the mills of the gods ground in their 
time. Those mills grind slowly, but they grind 
exceeding fine. 



86 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



AAEON BURR 

When I was preparing myself to write the 
story of " The Man Without a Country," which 
has been alhided to, I went as carefully as I 
could into the history of Aaron Burr, and what 

is called his Plot, 
winding np with the 
great Treason Trial 
at Richmond. 

I satisfied myself 
that there is more 
to be learned about 
it than any one now 
knows ; and I still 
think that here is a 
good unexplored field 
of work for any wide- 
awake young man 
or woman who really 
cares for the history 
of the country. I also think that more important 
material than has yet been used by historians 
is to be found, not in this country, but in the 
archives of Mexico ; and probably at Madrid 
also. I should not attempt any careful history 
of that business till I had been in Mexico and 




Aaron Burr. 
From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 



AARON BURR 87 

Spain, with periiiission to use their papers of the 
time. 

Burr probably had agents, if you may call 
tliem so, in all our seaports, pressing men to join 
him somewhere, somehow. Of such agencies of 
his the Spanish Minister at Washington was well 
informed, and he sent to Mexico, and I suppose 
to Madrid, despatches quite as highly colored as 
the truth demanded. 

I began to wonder, very soon in my researches, 
why Burr was so carefully let alone by Jefferson 
in 1805 and 1806, and was then pursued with 
such intense hatred in 1807. Was there not, 
perhaps, at bottom in Mr. Jefferson's heart, a 
suspicion that Burr would be well out of the 
way, either if he succeeded in establishing his 
|)rincij)ality, or if he were killed in l)attle, or if 
he were halved and quartered by the Spaniards ? 

Recollect that Jefferson knew what they had 
done to Nolan and his men, and that Nolan's 
men were slaving in the mines of New Mexico. 
With this suspicion I went over the correspond- 
ence now at Washington as well as I could, only 
to find that, yes or no, whatever Mr. Jefferson 
knew or did not know, he covered his own tracks 
very carefully. There is nothing in the Jeffer- 
son papers or the papers from our Minister in 



88 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Madrid — nothing at all. Yon may read the 
correspondence and hardly know that there was 
any Aaron Burr. 

The reader will thank me for copying Jeffer- 
son's very curious letter to Burr as early as 1800, 
December 15, in which he flatters him to the 
top of his bent. Yet, after this, there is, how- 
ever, a long memorandum, which has been 
printed, which is Jefferson's account of a con- 
versation between him and Burr in January, 
1802, not quite a year after their inauguration. 
Burr is profuse in his protestations of loyalty to 
Jefferson. Jefferson is cold, scornful almost, in 
his account of his replies. It is clear enough 
that from that time there could have been 
nothing approaching intimacy between them. 

In this conversation Burr said that New York 
was in the hands of two great families, the 
Clintons and the Livingstons ; and that his 
loyalty to Jefferson had lost to him the confi- 
dence of both. This is an interesting^ suo;- 
gestion to any one who cares to study the 
"unaccountable" in New York politics. It 
goes deep in the history of National politics 
for sixty years. ^ 

^ In the canvass of 1828-1829 John Quincy Adams made the 
remark, which I believe I first put in print, that in political 
matters "I^ew York always was cue of the devil's own un- 
accountables." 




J 1 1^ ^a4 11^ 



AARON BURR 91 

If I were twenty years younger than I am, 
and if by good fortune there were eiglit days in 
the week for some half-year, I think I -would 
write the life of Aaron Burr from 1795, perhaps, 
to 1810. No one else will do it. I observe, 
however, that in the flood of historical novels 
there are one or two which deal with him. But, 
historically, now that Mr. Parton is dead, nobody 
cares anything about him.^ 

It is a most picturesque, dramatic, and mysteri- 
ous life. Sometimes one wonders whether, in 
his own mind, after it was all over, there re- 
mained any very distinct plan of what he was 
about or what he was trying for. It seems to 
me very queer that, living until the year 1836, 
he did not himself prepare a monograph which 
should tell at least what he pretended it was. 

From 1795 to 1800 he was a prominent New 
York politician. He w^ent and came with no 
fundamental theory of government, I think, 
and perfectly indifferent as to the questions of 
the day so only Aaron Burr was at the top and 

1 After T printed these words in December, 1901, I learned 
-from Mr. Charles Felton Pidgin that he proposes "to write 
several books in which Aaron Burr will be a conspicuous fig- 
ure," and " that he intends to close the series with a life of 
Colonel Burr." Mr. Pidgin is Councillor-in-chief and Corre- 
spondeut-in-chief of " The Aaron Burr Legion." 



92 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

other people were not at the top. Certainly one 
or two analyses made by Burr himself of the 
political quarrels of that day in New York add 
very little to our light on the subject. I do not 
believe that there now lingers in the State of 
New York any " silver-gray politician," or any- 
body else, w^ho knows or cares why faction was 
divided against faction as it was. 

As the reader knows, the Federalist party in 
Congress had determined to take its chances and 
elect Aaron Burr to the Presidency. It had 
failed, and Jefferson became President. With 
that election it was determined that the South- 
ern influence should, on the whole, j)revail in the 
government of America until the year 1861. 
The administration of John Quincy Adams, a 
month of William Henry Harrison, and two or 
three years of Millard Fillmore are exceptions, 
so far as the names of the Presidents may l)e 
taken as indications of the National policy. 
But practically the National administration was 
in Southern hands throughout those sixty years. 
For Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, and 
James Buchanan were all chosen as " Northern 
men with Southern principles," as what John 
Randolph called '' doughfaces," and what bitter 
partisans called " putty men." That is to say, 



AARON BURR 93 

tliev were Northern men who were acting under 
the orders of tlie Southern party to the very 
last. 

1 do not myself think that in 1801 anyl)ody 
in the country saw that the real cleavage line 
was th(^ line hetween the States which were 
virtually free States and those States which were 
really handicapped by the slave system. In 
truth, slavery was not fairly abolished in all 
the Northern states at that time, though all the 
tendencies were against it. On the other hand, 
there was a very strong anti-slavery sentiment 
south of that line, particularly in the State of 
Virginia. This appears very distinctly in Jef- 
ferson's correspondence, in Madison's, and in 
Washington's, 

All the same, however, the two parties of this 
country were the party of the North and the 
party of the South. One was a j)arty of com- 
merce and the other was a party of agriculture ; 
one was the party of free lal)or and the other 
was the party of slave lal)or. When Josiah 
Quincy, one of the line old Federal war-horses, 
was ninety-one years old, I took niy oldest child 
over to the town of Quincy to see him in his 
countr}' home, especially that she might remem- 
ber that she had seen a man who was born be- 



94 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

fore the American Revolution began. He was 
as well and strong as the youngest man who 
reads this paper. He was in capital spirits that 
day, and freely went over the history of America 
for a hundred years. Now, if you please, that 
day was just a century after the halcyon moment 

of which Wash- 
ington wrote to a 
friend in London 
that America 
would never be 
'Y- _ .J I heard of in the 

world's counsels 
again. 

It was in the 
heart of the Civil 
War, and I asked 
the old gentle- 

JOSIAH QUINCY. j^-^^j-^ ^^l^^t ^.^g 

After the portrait by Stuart. 

the nrst battle 
between the North and South. With rage 
only half suppressed, he said it was on the 
question between the Northern States and 
Southern States as to the position of the Fed- 
eral capital — Should it be in Northern territory 
or Southern ? And very indignant he was with 
Langdon, the New Hampshire Senator who 




AARON BURR 95 

turned the scale. He spoke of Jefferson in 
terms as severe as I should use in speaking of 
Satan. And, by the way, 1 may say that he 
intimated that Jefferson's hold of the Demo- 
cratic party, which was of course always the 
Southern party, did not virtually cease luitil the 
strong and young hand of John Caldwell Cal- 
houn took the reins from Jefferson. In this 
conversation he cited a phrase of Gouverneur 
Morris that the mistake was a mistake " made 
at the beginning, when we united eight repub- 
lics with live oligarchies." In that phrase of 
Morris's is hidden the political history of the 
country. 

It seems to ha^^e been almost an accident that 
Aaron Burr should have been named with Jef- 
ferson as one of the two candidates for President 
under the old Constitutional arrangement. But, 
as it happened, he Avas the Northern Democrat 
of that decade. At bottom I suppose that 
was the reason why the Federal leaders in Con- 
gress in 1800 and 1801 determined to vote for 
him in the House of Representatives instead of 
Jefferson. Burr's position was, of course, one 
of the utmost difficulty. As late as the 16th of 
December, 1800, Jefferson had, or said he had, 
absolute coniidence in Burr. The letter which 



96 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



he wrote to Burr that day is still preserved, both 
in the original and in the press copy. The origi- 
nal is in Antiquarian Hall in Worcester, Mass. 
The critical election in the House of Repre- 







The Quincy Mansion at Quincy. 
From an early woodcut. 

sentatives came on the eleventh day of February, 
1801. Before that day Jefferson had lost the 
confidence which he had expre^.sed in Burr, never 
to resume it after. Burr had been chosen Vice- 



AARON BURR 97 

President by the Senate under the Constitutional 
form. One would say that naturally between 
the President and the Vice-President, between 
the years 1801 and 1805, there would be a good 
deal of intimacy, seeing that they were both 
representatives of the same great party. In 
point of fact, however, Jefferson wrote Burr 
only two letters in that time ; one to apologize 
for cutting open a letter by mistake, and the 
other of similar superficial character. Burr, 
however, would not tolerate this condition of 
things, and sought to obtain the interview with 
Jefferson which took ])lace, as I have said. Jef- 
ferson's account is in his Journal, which has 
been printed. It indicates, all the way through, 
his distrust of Burr and his certainty that Burr 
had played him false in private negotiations 
with the Federal leaders. But I do not believe 
that Jefferson was right in this opinion, doubt- 
less sincere. In Matthew^ Davis's Life of Biut, 
which I Avill say, by the way, is one of the 
stupidest and worst Ijooks that ever was written, 
he gives a mass of testimony which seems to me 
to prove that through the whole critical period 
of the election in the House of Representatives 
Burr was loyal to his chief and to the Demo- 
cratic party, l^ut, all the same, men doubted 



98 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

him, and after the duel with Hamilton men 
hated him. Burr was never anything but an 
adventurer, and at the suggestion, as it would 
seem, of Matthew Lyon, he determined to throw 
himself on the West, in a region which was then 
come into importance. He made his first jour- 
ney — a journey highly dramatic — down to 
New Orleans as soon as his term as Vice-Presi- 
dent ended in 1805. 

As I have said, it was my business to study 
this voyage of Burr down the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Rivers in every detail which was accessible 
to me. And very interesting study it was. I 
do not myself believe that at that time Burr had 
the slightest idea of any invasion of Texas or 
other enterprise aimed against the Spanish rule 
of Mexico ; but he met on that journey plenty 
of people who hated Spain and knew what a 
paradise Texas is. It was not unnatural that, 
being a Vice-President out of business, he con- 
ceived the plan for the filibustering expedition 
on that journey. 

On that first journey he met James Wilkin- 
son, who was the General in command of what 
it was the fashion to call the " Legion of the 
West," and I think that was its official title. It 
was suspected even then that Wilkinson was in 



AARON BURR 99 

the pay of the King of Spain, and we now know 
from Mr. Gayarre's researches in the Spanish 
archives that \\'ilkinson was receiving every year 
from the King of Spain a subsidy of three or four 
thousand dolhars.^ 

Wilkinson's own account of his dealing-s with 
Burr is so evidently the falsehood of a traitor 
and an intriguer that one can only make guesses 
about what really happened ; ]jut what we know 
is that, after going down to " Orleans," as New 
Orleans was then called, and meeting w^ith 
Daniel Clark and with others of the leading peo- 
ple there. Burr came back to the East with the 
determination to try a filibustering expedition, 
even if he had no definite plans for it. This 
determination occupied him when he arrived in 
Washington on the 29th of November, 1805, 
and until August, 1806, when he went to the 
West and sailed down the Ohio. Let the care- 
ful reader observe that we had taken possession 
of Louisiana nearly three years before. Let him 
also observe that the whole Southwest hated 
Spain with a hatred which has lasted until this 
time, of which tlie murder of Phihp Nolan and 

^ Tlie ston' of tlie discovery of this treason is a curious oue, 
which I liad from the lips of Mr. (iayarre in New Orleans in 
1876, and which I have told in another place. 

L.ofC. 



100 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the wicked imprisonment of his companions 
made an important element. Burr had un- 
doubtedly had four confidential and important 
interviews with Wilkinson in 1805. 

NATHAN HALE 

I have said tliat in these papers I am survey- 
ing the century as I have seen it myself through 
various keyholes. 

We began on that day in October when at my 
grandfather's they killed a pig in the morning, 
when, as the day went on, the boy Nathan Hale 
w^as called in from his work in the garden and 
was examined for Williams College. He joined 
his class after its first term, as the new-born 
century began. 

So for me and mine the nineteenth century 
begins — when the boy Nathan Hale begins on 
his course in college. His father's diary for the 
0th of February, ISOl, reads, " Have several 
scholars." On the 10th of February the little 
diary tells us that Nathan goes with Strong and 
Tavlor and Levi Parsons to Williams Colleg:e. 

Tliis means that so many boys went with 
Dr. Woodbridge on hoi'seback across the Green 
Mountain range, tliat the boys might begin on 
their colleore course. On the 3d of March the 



NATHAN HALE 101 

father wrote a letter to the bo}', and this entry 
in his diary may connect the beginning of the 
century with the new era in the history of tlieir 
country : " T. Jefferson chosen President U. 8." 
For the next day, the 4th of March, was the 
day on which Thomas Jefferson walked from 
his lodgings across to the half-finished halls of 
Congress and took the oath as President of the 
United States. The reign of Washington and 
Adams was over, and the reign of the Virghiian 
dynasty began. 

I have already spoken of the discussion among 
the Philotechnian students at Williamstown as 
to the purchase of Louisiana. Dr. Tyler, the 
historian of the College, speaks of the four years 
after 1801 as if they were unsatisfactory. But 
my father enjoyed them, and always spoke of 
his work at the College with pleasure. We are 
so grand now, and so apt to speak as if tlie Dark 
Ages really lasted to our own time, that it is 
edifying to observe the su))ject wliicli was given 
to him for discussion at his Commencement, 
September 5, 1804 : " Has Society for the last 
fifty years been in a state of progressive im- 
provement ?" 

This twenty-year-old boy, '' Mithout embrac- 
ing either extreme of opinion," proved to himself 



102 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and to his fond hearers, I think, that things had 
gone wonderfully well. He could speak of sci- 
ence with fresh recollections of Lavoisier, Priest- 
ley, and the destruction of alchemy ; and he had 
Dr. Herschel, who had doubled the size of the 
solar system, and Franklin, who had tamed the 
lightning. To these he gave four of his precious 
minutes on Commencement Day, 

" But the progress of the sciences has been 
surpassed by the improvement of taste in the 
fine arts." Stuart Mill was yet two generations 
in the future, but in 1804 -'we may claim for 
our own time the merit of the discovery that 
syllogistical reasoning can conduct no further 
into the secrets of science than the naked eye of 
common sense could penetrate. This illiberal 
attachment to system and method has yielded 
to a taste founded in nature, correct and un- 
adulterated." 

And so, after five minutes more, we come to 
the useful arts, commerce in particular. There 
he is able to conai:ratulate his hearers on the state 
of the political world. The year 1763 had crii> 
pled the house of Bourbon and extinguished all 
fear of universal empire, and then the American 
Revolution added an " extensive and powerful 
republic to the number of independent nations." 



NATHAN HALE 



103 



We drop a tear over poor Poland, but '' sov- 
ereigns acknowledge their subjection to the re- 
straints of moral obligation, and national honor 
becomes the strong guardian of national justice." 



WM 


■■ 




,^y- ^ ^^; 




:\: ..^-^^^ 



Williams College. 
From a paiiitiug nuide in 1845. 

The modern reader is a little surprised to read 
that in 1804 " war no longer carries havoc and 
ruin to the heart of an inott'ensive country, ))iit 
sports itself in tlie uncultivated fields or vents 
its thunders on the deep." Such had been the 
" pleasing picture till unexpectedly crimsoned by 



104 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

an event as unnatural as it was momentous." 
This was the French Revolution. From its paths 
of blood the young optimist turns aside to study 
the improvements time has brought in in the 
science of government. '' The practice of tor- 
ture has been abolished from the German courts 
of justice." The state of the European peasan- 
try is improved. The Ottoman power is on the 
decline. But, best of all, '' freedom of enquiry 
and liberty of conscience are now universally 
enjoyed." We lament that so many young men 
" reject the cheering doctrines of the Gospel " ; 
but how can we " wonder that on the liberation 
of the mind from the restraints of the Catholic 
faith, human reason should overleap the first 
weak barriers of truth. Infidelity is the off- 
spring of Popery ; but Popery is fallen, and the 
fate of religion is left to the decision of reason." 
All this shows a brave forelook based on the 
abandonment of the various fetichisms of the 
century before. For our present purpose, for a 
contemporary view of the nineteenth century as 
it marched along, it is interesting to see that 
this boy, in a newly founded college in the wil- 
derness, says of the Nation that " its unrivalled 
growth in riches, in power, and in respectability, 
the increase of its humane and literary institu- 



TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 105 

tioiis, with the uiipivredeiited excelleiK'e of its 
government and laws, are so well known to you 
that yon cannot but acknowledge their impor- 
tance. Such has been our unparalleled pros- 
perity that if a man were called upon to point 
out a model of national happiness he would 
without hesitation name the last fifteen years 
in the history of the United States." 

Such was what college boys dared to say of 
their own country in those happy times when 
there were no pessimistic New York weeklies. 

TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 

Williamstown, where young Hale graduated, 
is but a few miles from Troy. At his Commence- 
ment, or at that time, Mr. John D. Dickenson, 
of Troy, engaged him to Ije the tutor of his son 
and daughter for the next 3'ear. In that time 
he was to fit the boy for college and to give the 
girl such a training as he could with the l^rother. 
But this course of training was not to begin 
immediately, so that my father returned to 
Westhampton, and from Westhampton w^ent to 
Troy. 1 8up])ose he wanted to see the city 
of New York, whi(;li was already the largest 
city in the new Nation. T never heard how he 
got there, and I do not remember how long 



106 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

he stayed there, but from New York to Troy 
he went in a sloop or schooner — one of the 
packets of the time. 

Mr. Dickenson was for a dozen or twenty 
years the leading citizen of Troy. My father 
always spoke with regard and respect of him and 
of his own two pupils. 

He was, as I said, to complete the preparation 
of the boy for college. This meant that they 
were to read together most of the Latin and all 
of the Greek then required at Williams College 
or at Union College. The boy wanted to do 
this. His father wanted him to do it, and my 
father wanted him to do it. He did it, and he 
entered college with entire success. 

The experiment satisfied my father that the 
fuss now made about the preparatory study for 
Latin and Greek is what Mr. Adams would call 
a fetich and what I should call a bugaboo. 
When I was an overseer at Harvard College, the 
eternal question about Greek in college came up, 
and I said, in a speech I made, that I would 
teach the Greek necessary to enter Harvard Col- 
lege to any intelligent boy or girl of sixteen who 
wanted to do it, if both of us had three months' 
time for the study. I looked across the room 
to Mr. Seaver, the accomplished superintendent 



TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 107 

of the Boston schools, and I said, " Mr. Seaver 
will say the same thmg," ^nd he at once 
assented. 

In September, 1898, I saw at the Hancock 
Cushman School in Boston three hmidred and 
six girls who had just entered that school, who 
could not, all told, speak fifty words of English. 
In the next June, after nine months of training, 
they could speak English intelligibly, read it in- 
telligibly, and write it intelligibly. The major- 
ity of them were Russians, more than half of the 
rest were Germans, and the remaining fractions 
were Bohemians, Bulgarians, Italians, and Heaven 
knows what — even Arabs. I may say in passing 
that not one French, English, Scotch, Welsh, 
Irish, or American girl had entered this Boston 
school with them. 

In 187o I had the same thing taught me from 
the pupils' side. I was at Buda-Pesth and was 
talking in Latin with my friend Baron Orban, 
the same who has distinguished himself since in 
the Austi'o-Hungarian Ministry. I said to him, 
" How do you all learn to speak Latin when you 
are boys?" He said that he was sent to a board- 
ing-school when he was ten vears old. He was 
given one month and was told that if after one 
month he was heard speaking anything but 



108 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Latin, he would be flogged. The poor child had 
to say, " Da mihi panem et butyrum, si placeat," 
or starve. And he preferred the new language. 

All of w^hich is hardly an excursion ; for, as 
these memories go on, this reader, if he holds by 
us, will have to contrast more than once the 
tomfoolery of the mechanical processes of mere 
Instruction against the ethciency of the eternal 
principles which govern real Education. 

My father's own tastes, however, led him 
definitely into the study of mathematics, and he 
liked to teach the mathematics. He never lost 
his fondness for the classics. In speaking to his 
own pupils in 1807, he says definitely, " To those 
of you who are destined to the walks of a learned 
life, I would earnestly recommend a diligent cul- 
tivation of classical literature." But, as I have 
said, his tastes ran in the mathematical and prac- 
tical lines ; and so in 1805 he accepted the pro- 
posal made to him by Dr. A))bot, the head of 
Exeter Academy, who invited him to undertake 
the mathematical instruction in that school. 

Phillips Exeter Academy is still among the 
most eminent of our institutions of secondary 
instruction. It had won its place already in the 
respect of New England. And I am proud to 
say that I think one of the steps forward and 



TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 



109 



upward in its })rogres.s was taken wlien Dr. 
Abbot selected this young mathematician, 
Nathan Hale, to direct its studies in the line 
of wliich he was so fond. For me and mine, 
the selection has proved important. For it was 




I'HILLIFS-EXETER A( ADEMY, WHERE N.VTHAN HalK TAL'UHT. 

Huilt in 17i4. The wings were added in 1822. 

at Exeter that my father made the acquaintance 
and won tlie friendship of Alexander Hill 
Everett, afterward for most of his life in the 
diplomatic service of the country. From this 
friendship grew my father's attachment to Sarah 
Preston Everett, the sister of his friend, whom 



110 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



he married in September, 1816, and who is my 
mother. Where I, who write these lines, should 
be if Nathan Hale had not gone to Exeter the 

year he became of age, I 
will not midertake to say. 
Exeter was really a 
home of the muses at 
that time. Leading in 
its social order was Judge 
Oliver Peabody, of tlie 
Supreme Court of New 
Hampshire, and his ac- 
complished family. Two 
twin brothers, William 
Bourne Oliver and Oliver 
William Bourne Peabody, 
both of Harvard College 
in the class of 1816, who, 
as men, afterward filled 
an important place in the best literary circles 
of New England, were little boys in 1805. I do 
not know what Williamstown had had to offer 
in the way of literature or art, or the social 
joys which are connected with literature and art, 
but I do know that at Exeter my father found 
a social circle as much alive to the delights and 
to the duties which belong; to the hio-hest edu- 




Dr. Oliver Peabody of 

Exeter. 
From an early miniature. 



TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 111 

cation of one's time as any social centre of the 
x\merican world in wliicli lie could have lived. 

In ISOG Mr. Alexander Everett l)rought with 
him to Exeter his younger brother Edward, who 
spent his last j-ear there before entering Harvard 
College. The note from him, written when he 
was eleven years old, is perhaps the earliest of 
his \vriti)igs extant. See pp. 112, 113. 

I think my father doubted for a little whether 
he would study law in Boston or in Troy. I 
think his father had wished that he should be a 
minister. I know that he had studied Hebrew 
in college. But he once said to me that he 
studied Hebrew because there was uothino; else 
there he could study ; and certainly by the time 
the year 1807 came, he had determined on the 
training of a lawyer. He went back to West- 
hampton and Troy, after- two years' service at 
Exeter, but he returned this time to Boston, in 
the spring of 1(808. When he arrived in Boston, 
he entered himself in the office of Oxenbridge 
Thacher, and he was admitted to the bar in 
1810. 

Meanwliile the leaders of Massachusetts poli- 
tics, in especial John Lowell, of Roxbury, who 
was proud to call himself " a Massachusetts 
farmer," and the other young Federal leaders of 



112 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



fy.ca> ^-^'^ ^y^ y-'^-'-- " ) 



^ 



lC6^. 



V-CT t/ita ••/* r 



cAc^^rCu.. ^,/^>^ /^X-.^/^ .^^ .,:J..O 






Edward Kvei;ktt'.s Lkttkk. 



their time, foimd that the Columhian Centinel, 
which had been the organ of the Federal party, 
did not meet their wishes as a newspaper, and 



TKOY, EXETER, BOSTON 113 

A^/zf*/ /# i^ .cjL.»,-J^t^,Cit*^ "/yr^ <^.*^ /^*<^ /^ 



.■^*t,7 



^i-^/'jt^, 







I'.hw \i:i> i;vKi;i:i t's J.kttki;. 



est;il)li.slied the Weekhj Jlfessenr/er. This John 
Lowell was the son of the John Lowell of New- 
bnryport whom I call " the Emancipator." It 
would Ije fair to say that the Messenger was 
an oru-an of \ouu2; Federalism in Massachnsetts. 
It was the first paper in the country which de- 
clined to receive any advertisements, and threw 



VOL. 1. — I 



114 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

itself upon its worth as a journal of literature 
and politics for its reason to be. 

The coterie of leaders naturally wanted some 
young men to take the oversight, to look after 
the proof-sheets and the rest, and in this service 
Nathan Hale and Henry D. Sedgwick were em- 
ployed from the very beginning. It naturally 
happens in all such cases that the mayors of the 
palace become the kings. More and more defi- 
nitely did my father show that he was, by his 
early and his later training, fitted for the posi- 
tion of an editor. More and more did his tastes 
lead him this way ; and after a practice at the 
bar, successful as young men's experience goes, 
for four years, in 1814 he bought the Boston 
Daily Advei'tiser, which had been established 
a short time before, and for fifty years after- 
w^ard he edited that journal. 

The young lawyers of to-day would be amused 
if it were proposed to them to carry out the 
details of professional life in such ways as were 
required in the life of young attorneys ninety 
years ago. My father used to say that he was 
the first person w^ho drove a chaise from Augusta 
across to Bangor. It was his duty, I suppose, to 
attach some property in Bangor. At all events, 
he conducted in person some transaction there 



'mmmmmif^ 












Sfi-it'h- •■■■ 



C^ 



s 






'Mi *rfi;--, 



^fi KjlJ-nfli 












p _ 









TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 117 

for one of his clients. He went from Boston to 
Augusta in the stage, and there took a wagon 
or chaise by which he went across the roads 
which before had been used only by riders on 
horseback or by teams with freight. This must 
have been in the short war with England.^ 

As early as 1809 Alexander Hill Everett, 
who was afterward to be his brother-in-law, 
sailed with Mr. John Quincy Adams for Europe, 
having engaged to be Mr. Adams's private sec- 
retary. In one or another diplomatic capacity 
Mr. Everett spent most of his time in Europe 
until 1829, when General Jackson recalled him 
from Spain. My father was thus in close cor- 
respondence with one of his most intimate 
friends, who was, on his })art, from 1809 to 
1812, in tlie centre of that diplomacy which has 
proved so important in the history of the century. 
I do not know when Mr. Hale learned German, 
but he always, since I can recollect, read French 
and German with ease; and the WeekJi/ Messen- 
ger and the Da'dij Advertiser became exponents 
for America of the European news in a position 

^ A correspoiult'iit ie\\» me tluit on the toniVistone of Caleb 
Shaw ill Newport, Maine, it is recorded that '• he drove tlie first 
wheeled vehicle from the Kennebec to the Penobscot." 

Yes; bnt a '* wheeled vehicle " may be an ox-team and prob- 
ably was. 



118 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

which no American newspaper had taken before. 
In those days news did not come from hour to 
hour, but sometimes kicky vessels ran into Bos- 
ton with intelligence six weeks later than any 
which had been received before. In the ofhce 
of the Weekly Messenger, in my boyhood, there 
were traditions of extras which covered more 
than a month of the history of the world. 

Mr. Webster's career in Boston had beg-un a 
little earlier than my father's. His brother 
Ezekiel had established a school there in which 
I have heard that Daniel Webster sometimes 
served as an assistant. I think Edward Everett 
was once a pupil in this school, but Mr. Webster 
established his law otfi.ce at Boscawen, in New 
Hampshire, and then at Portsmouth. He repre- 
sented Portsmouth in the War Congress of 1813. 
In the great fire of Portsmouth in December, 
1813, his house and library were destroyed, and 
this disaster tempted him to remove from that 
place. He had some hesitation, in the choice of 
a new home, between Albany and Boston. But 
finally, in the year 1816, he determined upon 
Boston, where at once he took the place in his 
profession due to him. My father and he were 
very intimate. Edward Everett graduated at 
Cambridge in 1811, and between him and Mr. 



TROY, EXETER, BOSTON 



119 



Webster there grew vip a close attacliineiit. Mr. 
Webster's second sou was named Edward in con- 
sequence of this personal attachment. 

The Messenger and the Advertiser may l^e con- 
sidered as representing in Massachusetts the new 
light of those leaders of Massachusetts who took 
the place which 
in the death of 
the old Federal 
party had ))een 
left vacant. 1 
go into these 
details, of little 
interest to any 
but my children 
and myself, be- 
cause, as I ha\e 
said, my house is 
filled with the 




l)AMi;i. Wki'.si i;i:. 
After the portrait by R. M. Staigg. 



correspondence 
between Europe 
and America, between Washington and Boston, 
between Boston and half the woi'ld indeed, wliich 
grew out of these relations ; and when I speak in 
these papers of the history of the United States 
from 1810 to 1901, 1 am speaking as one who 
illustrates what he says from such materials. 



THE SMALLER BOSTON 



CHAPTER TTI 
THE SMALLER BOSTON 
P.dSTOX IN 1808 -^^ 

THE Boston wliieli welcomed my father after 
liis two days' ride from Northampton was 
a town of gardens. A few years after that time 
an ingenious Frenchman made a model of the 
town in cork, cutting out his separate houses 
and cl lurches, and painting them in their proper 
colors. In the little handbill which explained 
this pretty reproduction of the town he says 
that there are in it nine blocks of brick build- 
ings, of which one or two are new. The largest 
of these l^locks were the tw^o curved sides of 
Cornhill, which still stand. The name Cornhill, 
however, then applied to that part of Washing- 
ton Street between Milk Street and Dock Square. 
The Cornhill of to-day was then called Market 
Street. 

Most of the private houses in Washington 
Street had little yards or gardens, as we should 
say, on one or both sides, and on the street only 

123 



124 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



windows, the front door opening into the garden. 
In those days there were private houses in 
Washington Street. Yon may see the same 
arrangement in the Main Street at Charlestown 
to-day, on the otlier side of Charles River. In 

many cases there 
were orchards of 
considerable size 
immediately ad- 
joining the houses. 
The account which 
Marshall Wilder 




gave in " The 
Memorial History 
of Boston " of 
the early gardens 
makes one's 
mouth water. 
" One of the 
largest gardens of 
that day was that 
of Governor James Bowdoin, who had a large 
house and extensive lot of land on Beacon Street, 
at the corner of Bowdoin Street, reaching quite 
over the hill — what is now Ashburton Place. 
This large garden abounded in the finest fruits, 
pears, peaches, apples, and grapes." Mr. Kirk 



James Bowdoin. 
After the miniature by J. H. Daniels. 



BOSTON IN 1808 



125 



Boott's garden was spread around the present 
site of the Revere House. '' Fruit trees and 
vines and foreign grapes and other tender fruits 
"vvhieh now succeed only under glass grew in 
the open air." In Summer Street the gardens 
of the Amorys, the Salisburys and Gardners, ran 
back to Bedford Street. In some instances 




Beacon Street a hundred years ago. 

these gardens covered two, three, or even more 
acres. No such luxury in open fields or orchards 
exists now. 

These memoranda of old vacant spaces in 
Boston will have a certain interest for people 
who buy their thread and needles, perhaps, 
where I have picked and eaten pears, or have 
aimed my arrow at a target a hundred yards 
away. 

But the exterior social chano'es between the 
active maritime town of thirty thousand people 



126 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



into which, after two days, the Brookfield 
"stage" brought my father in 1808, are perhaps 
more noteworthy, when Boston hfe is compared 
against the more conventional life of to-day. A 
memorandum now before me, of 1806 or 1807, 
by the late James Hale, of New York, speaks of 
Colonel T. H. Perkins, for many years the prince 
of Boston merchants, as 
trudging home for his eight 
o'clock breakfast from old 
Faneuil Hall witli the mar- 
ket-basket containing his one 
o'clock dinner. The same 
memorandum says that Har- 
rison Gray Otis, the eloquent 
Senator of the State in 
^yashington, might be seen 
doing the same thing ; and 
that William (" Billy ") Gray, whose ship dis- 
covered the Columbia River, Benjamin Bussey, 
the founder of the Agricultural School of Har- 
vard College, Peter Chardon Brooks and Israel 
Thorndike, both of them among the richest 
men in New England, might be every morning 
in the same company. 

These gentlemen had bought their dinners 
personally at Faneuil Hall Market. It is a little 




( 'usidMiiiii S1-; 



BOSTON IN 1808 



127 



queer that wlien one goes into the historic 
Faneuil Hall, which we Boston people call " the 
Cradle of Liberty," he passes upstairs between 
the stalls of a market where he sees beef and 
pork, cabbages and lettuce, for sale. This is 
Ijecause Peter Faneuil, the son of a Huguenot, 
built the hall for the town of Boston when 
twenty thousand people lived 
there. He gave it to the 
tow^n that the lower part 
might be used for a market, 
the upper part for a place 
of assembly for the citizens. 
At this moment, if any fifty 
citizens agree that they want 
to hold a public meeting in 
this hall, they can have the 
use of the hall without money 
and without price for that purpose. And the 
lawyers have long since instructed the govern- 
ment of the city that if she does not continue 
the use of the lower story as a market, some 
Huguenot of a new century might appear from 
France and establish his claim for this historic 
property. 

In tlie business and pleasure of thirty thou- 
sand people there had to be large stables. And 




Ulu State IIoUse. 



128 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of the region now most crowded in the daily life 
of the town a large j^art was then given to such 
stables. Niles's stable ran back from School 
Street northerly. On Bromfield Street a large 
stable served the customers of the Indian Queen 
Tavern. This extended southerly. The Marl- 
boro Hotel stood where the bookseller's arch 




East View of Faneuil Hall Market. 

now is. The taverns which stood where the 
Boston Theatre and Keith's now stand, and op- 
posite them, were called the Lion Tavern and 
the Lamb Tavern and the Lafayette Tavern. 
Their stables ran back there. On the south side 
of West Street was another large stable. There 
was a very large stable on the west side of Haw- 



BOSTON IN 1808 



129 




ley Street, where the great retail shops of Wash- 
ington Street now run back and cover the whole 
territory. 

In I80O, when I was eight years old, I was 
sent on a Sunday morninsi: 
with my brother Nathan to 
the house of Mr. Alexander 
Ev'erett, in Summer Street, 
with the " extra " from the 
Daily Advertiser, which con- 
tained the news of the 
rhjwnfall of Charles X and 
the Parisian Revolution of 
1830. We must needs go 
through Hawley Street, I 
do not know why, ))ut when we arrived in 
Summer Street we found we had lost our 
documents. We returned at once, to find that 
the stablemen of the street were reading 
our new^s and so we regained our })recious 
•'extra." 1 tell the story, because I never pass 
through Hawley Street without thinking of 
riiarlcs X. 

Tlie very queer lay of the streets in one and 
another part of Boston may be referred fre- 
quently to the former existence of these great 
''lots" of land, all hut forgotten, which were 




Faxeuil Hali,. 



130 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

covered by barns for hay, and other cheap 
wooden buildings. 

Into a town Hke this there shambled in very 
different stages, which were never called stage- 
coaches, from all parts of New England; or, 
very likely, travellers arrived in their own 
chaises. Observe that no wagon of foin^ wheels 
for pleasure travelling was known until General 
Dearborn introduced such a wagon from the 
West in the period of the English war ; and 
the light four-wheeled wagon in which people 
began to ride from place to place was called the 
" Dearborn wagon." ' Besides the spring of the 
wagon proper, the seat hung on a spring of its 
own ; it was, therefore, well adapted for corduroy 
riding. This seems to have been a Western 
invention, when New York was a Western 
State. 

The first steam railroad line which carried 
passengers out of Boston was the Boston and 
Worcester Railroad Company, which sent a 
train, mostly as a matter of curiosity, nine miles 
out, to West Newton, in the summer of 1833. 
Before that time the communication with the 



^ I am sorry to say that the Century Dictionary says that 
this wagon was invented by a man named Dearborn. But I 
tell the tale as it was told to me. 



BOSTON IN 1808 



131 



interior was made on the common roads with 
horse traction, with the exception, which is 
hardly an exception, of the few passengers and 
slight freight which came on the Middlesex Canal 
from the Meri-imack River. Boston was supplied 
with lumber, as our good American English has 
it, and with most of the fuel for burning, from 
Maine, and such products of the forest were 







SP^^B"^^^ 



Boston and Worcester Railway. 



brought by water. Such su})plies as this made 
fuel very cheap in eastern Massachusetts. Our 
trade with the West Indies also made molasses 
a very easy product to import here. Putting 
these two easy and cheap commodities together, 
that is to say, wood under a boiler and molasses 
into the boiler, and you obtained New England 
rum. For the first forty years of the century, 
therefore, the manufacture of rum was a princi- 



132 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

pal manufacture of the town of Boston ; and to 
this hour, whoever digs a new cellar for any 
large building in what was then the South End 
of Boston runs against the old excavations 
which were made for condensing vats in those 
days. 

The population of Boston in 1808 was about 
thirty thousand. The space occupied by the old 
peninsula was about seven hundred acres. My 
father used to say, when he was seventy years 
old, that when he came to Boston the enterprise 
of internal improvement which attracted the 
most interest on the part of Boston people was 
that by which they should dig down Beacon Hill 
and fill up the mill-pond, celebrated in Franklin's 
early biography, at the northern end of the town. 
This was successfully done, so that Mr. Thurston, 
of the house in Bow^doin Street destroyed only 
lately, used to say that the chimney of his new 
house, four stories high, was at the same spot in 
space as where the doorsteps were some years 
before. This condition of things lasted until 
the end of 1847, when it was the business of my 
father, as head of the water commission of that 
time, to rebuild Beacon Hill, in order to give 
sufficient height to the reservoir which should 
supply the highest levels of water in Boston. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 



133 



Tiiuo rolled l)y, and in the last week of 188*.) it 
was my privilege, in the company of Governor 
Oliver Ames, to offer in words the prayers of 
the great assembly when we laid the corner- 
stone of the annex to the State House, for which 




The Old State House. 
From a picture owned by the Massafhusetts Historical Society. 

corner-stone my father's reserv(nr had Ijeen 
pulled down and Beacon Hill again reduced in 
its altitude. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 

The Boston to which my father came in 1808, 
and to which Mr. Webster came in 181/4, was 



134 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

separated by a generation from the Boston of 
the Revolution. Mr. Webster alludes more than 
once, I think, to the fact that he was born the 
year before the treaty of 1783; and I always 
liked to tell my father, who was born in 1784, 
that he was as old as the Nation. When he 
came to Boston, the Revolutionary men were 
still on the stage as old men. Even Jefferson 
had not dared remove General Benjamin Lin- 
coln, who had been made Collector of the Port 
by Washington. He resigned in 1808. Peter 
Oxenbridge Thacher, with whom my father 
studied law, was born in 1776, the son of that 
Dr. Thacher who wrote, from his personal ob- 
servation, the American official account of the 
Battle of Bunker Hill. He was minister of 
Maiden, and, with half his flock, he saw the 
battle on the " Rail Fence " side, across the 
Mystic River. 

So in 1808, one saw men to whom the Revo- 
lution was as fresh as the Civil War is with us, 
and as distant. And, just as the generation 
stepping on the stage now does not care to be 
bound by the traditions of Bull Run or Antietam 
or Gettysburg, just so then the younger school 
of politicians were finding out that they had a 
country of their own. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE L35 

For in3"8elf, I did not see men to know them 
for yet a generation more. 

I was born in 1822, fifty-seven years after the 
Stamp Act and the Stamp Act Riots. Fifty- 
seven years after my birth, in 1879, Mr. Justin 
Winsor asked me, as one of his co-workers, to 
write the history of the Siege of Boston for the 
Memorial History. 

I did the work as well as I could. I was a 
little amused — more than amused, I was inter- 
ested — to observe that my birthday was half- 
way between the time which separated me and. 
mine from King George and his. When my 
work was done, I was curious to test the value 
of personal tradition by seeing liow much my 
own memories had contributed to my own arti- 
cle. I believe that there were twelve anecdotes 
in that chapter which I have heard and had not 
read, not one of the slightest real importance. 
But I propose now to go into a little detail with 
regard to them, because I think that such detail 
fmrnishes comment of some use on a habit far 
too general, of relying upon tradition. 

My dear old friend James Savage, of the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society, really thought, I 
believe, that the traditional anecdote was false 
because it was traditional. This goes much too 



136 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



far, but, on the other hand, such a series of 
reminiscences as my twelve seem to me to 
show of how little worth personal tradition 
is at the end of the century. Here was 1, 
growing up in Boston, within a century of the 
outbreak of the Revolution, and here are the 
facts which come to me from other sources 
than written history. For local color, yes, for 




Laiaykite's \'isit to Boston. 
From an old print. 

what the artists call the jjroken lights in the 
foreground, such anecdotes have a certain 
value ; but for the foundation facts, from which 
the truth of history is to be discovered, we 
must be very careful how we trust to the 
memories of men.^ 

^ When in 1868 Mr. Savage was askeil at a dinner party if 
he remembered my '• Man Witliont a Conntry," he said that 
the name was fictitious, but that he remembered the com"t- 
martial. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 



137 



I must have seen Lafayette liiiu.self with the 
eye of the flesh, on the 17th of June, 1825. I 
was tliree 3'ears and more than tliree months 
old, and on that day Lafayette went in pro- 
cession from Boston to Charlestown to lay the 
corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, on the 
fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker 
Hill.' I was 
a little ])oy, re- 
covering; from 
scarlet fever, 
and I was 
lifted up at 
the window to 
see the pro- 
cession pass 
which escorted 
Lafayette. The 
place was op- 
posite the Tre- 
mont Building of to-day, where the Tremont 
House stood for a half-century. At that time 
there was a large garden or orchard there, 
witli three wooden houses upon it. 

1 This battle is so far forgotten that, in a careful revise, 
which had passed the correctors in what was then the best 
printing-house in America, within sight of the Monument. I 
once had the words come to me as the Battle of Bunker Kill I 
This gives a sort of Boer sound to our hislorv. 




Lai AVETTK. 

From a colored print. 



138 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Alas and alas ! such are the memories of 
childhood that, while I can recall the green 
feathers of the Rifle Rangers, a crack military 
company of that day, and also the yellow badge 
that was given to me which had Lafayette's 
head printed npon it, I have now no recollection 
either of the carriage in which he rode or the 
horses which drew it, far less of the hero himself. 

My father then lived in the second house 
from the southern corner of School Street, but 
not long after he removed into a new house 
which was then built on the corner lot, occupy- 
ing, as the other house did, part of the site 
of the present Parker House. As we children 
stood at the window to see the people pass, we 
used to see Major Melvill, who was really a 
hero of the Tea Party. He is the "last leaf 
upon the tree " of Holmes's song : — 

" But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

' They are gone.' " 

One knows that he really was of the Tea 
Party because he never said he was. It is to 
be noted, in any study of what tradition is 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 139 

wortli, that if in the la.st century any man 
said he was of tlie Tea Party, you knew tliat 
strictly he was not. If, on tlie other hand, 
when the snhject was alluded to with an old 
Boston man, he smiled and winked and per- 
]\^d\^s said nothing ; if he turned the conversa- 
tion in some other direction, you were almost 
sure that lie was one of the two parties which 
were organized to throw the tea overl)oard. 
These members met at Griffin's wharf, coming 
from the North End and the South End by 
a})pointment. Tliey placed sentries at the 
head of the wharf to prevent interference from 
any one. Their faces in some instances, and 
1 think in all. were blackened, that they might 
not be recognized. And they went to work 
as stevedores would do, in a systematic way, 
to haul up the tea from the vessels, to break 
open the chests, and to throw the tea into the 
water. All these men had sworn with a 
masonic oath that they would never implicate 
any one in the transaction. If, therefore, when 
these men were old men, they did not say they 
were there, that is no reason for supposing they 
were not. 

On the other hand, every man and boy in 
Boston wlio had two legs repaired to the scene 



140 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to look on. Some of them even struggled 
through the guard, as did the father of the 
late Charles Sprague, the poet. Mr. Charles 
Sprague told uie this story. His father strug- 
gled through because his master who was at 
work in the Tea Party, recognized him. He 
blackened the boy's face with soot from a 
blacksmith's shop, as the rest were blackened, 
and permitted him to join in the work. But 
young Sprague was not, and never pretended 
that he was, one of what is technically called 
the Tea Party. Major Melvill was, and never 
said he was. Any amount of the tea as the 
tide went out drifted on the beach at South 
Boston, and there are few old Boston people 
who have not seen vials of the tea which were 
taken from the mounds which were then upon 
the beach. But we are apt to forget how little 
room tea takes. 

A correspondent, Mr. Fritz Jordan, well in- 
formed in such matters writes me : — 

'' I make the following computations as to the 
Tea Party of December 10, 1773. 

"John Adams says in his letter of Dec. 17 
that all the tea in three ships Vv-as destroyed. 
Other records state that the names of the ships 
were the Dartmouth, Eleanor^ and Bearer. I 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 141 

have seen no statement as to their size, but it 
is possible that there are some records extant 
giving it. The Dartmoutli was owned in Bos- 
ton. The number of chests destroyed was 324. 
1 have no data from old invoices as to the 
probable size of these chests, but as they were 
ap})arently passed out of the hold by hand and 
without the use of tackles they probably did not 
weigh over one hundred pounds or thereabouts. 
Most of the tea of to-day is impoi'ted in half 
chests of aljout ")•") lbs. o;ross weio;ht and 40 lbs. 
net weight, and of 2^ feet cubical contents. 
Assuming that these chests were double the 
size, or 80 lbs. net weight, 110 lbs. gross weight, 
and o cubic feet contents, the 324 would con- 
tain 27,360 lbs. of tea, equal to more than 12 
tons, or including the packages, 17 tons weight, 
or about 40 J tons measurement. A room 10 
feet wide, 20 feet long, and a tritie over 8 feet 
high would hold the 324 chests. They could 
be- loaded into an ordinary freight car, or put 
into the smoking room of a modern steamship. 
" These ships are spoken of as tea ships and 
nothing is said of any other cargo, but it appears 
to me that they must have had some other 
cargo, as it is prol)able that they were from 
fifty to over a hundred tons burthen." 



142 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I remember no one else who actually wore a 
blue coat and leathern breeches, as the hero of 
Dr. Holmes's ballad does. 

I think tliat Major Melvill w^as the first sur- 
vivor of the Revolutionary soldier whom I saw, 
knowing that he had been a Revolutionary sol- 
dier. I must have seen many such men, but in 
1830, when my real memories begin, people 
would hardly point them out in the street. 
By which I mean that a man who was twenty- 
one on the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill 
was in 1830 seventy-six years old. In all no- 
tices for public processions, for many years after 
that time, there was a place reserved for " sur- 
vivors of the Revolution." The one exception 
of a veritable Revolutionary soldier with w^hom 
I have ever talked was Mr. Eben Clapp, of 
Northampton. I preached in Northampton in 
January and February and March, 1843. Mr. 
Clapp was one of the constant attendants at 
our church. I dare not say one of my con- 
stant hearers, for the old man asked me once 
to give out the text distinctly and address it 
to him personally, as he sat in the front pew. 
He said, " When I hear the young men's texts, 
I know what they are going to say," and im- 
plied that he did not care for much beside the 



THE LAST LEAVES OX THE TREE 143 

text. Mr. Cla})}) liad been out " ag'in' Bur- 
go jne " in 1777. The whole of the Connecti- 
cut Valley in Massachusetts was swept by 
conscription, and every man from sixteen to 
fifty-five was enrolled and had to march with 
the militia of Hampshire County to join the 
army under Schuyler, Gates, or Lincoln. Then 
there came another draft for the "exempts." 
Mr. Clapp's grandfather, who was nearly sixty, 
would have been obliged to march with this 
contingent, but E))en Clapp, a boy of fifteen, 
begged that he might be accepted as his grand- 
father's substitute, and was so accepted. With 
this company of " exempts " he marched as far 
north as what was known as "'Number Four" 
in New Hampshire, which is now the town 
of Charlestown, New Hampshire. There they 
heard of Burgoyne's sm^render, and they re- 
turned to their homes. The conversations 
which I used to have with Eben Clapp are, 
so far as I know, the only conversations I 
ever had with a Revolutionary soldier. It may 
he readily imagined that I did not learn from 
him nuich of the interior conduct of the war. 
In my grandfather's diary the great surrender 
is thus recorded : '' October 23, lodging and so 
forth, OS. Ride with Colonel Webster's son, 



144 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

diue at Pembroke (New Haiiipsliire) 2s 6 pence. 
Ferry at Penny cook, 4. Burgoine surrendered 
prisoner ITtli Stop at Uncle Atkinson's." [The 
day's ride must have been from Portsmouth 
to Concord.] 

As late as 1857 or 1858 I knew Mrs. Nancy 
Brown, a nice old lady, well preserved, who must 
have been at that time eighty-seven years old. 
She told me that she was a North End girl ; 
that the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill every 
one who lived there was, of course, intensely 
excited. The cannon on Copp's Hill were, 
from time to time, firing across at Charles- 
town ; the children must have seen Charles- 
town burnino;, though I do not remember that 
she spoke of that. But she did tell me that 
when the carts began to come up from the 
ferry with the wounded English soldiers, the 
children ran after the carts as they went up 
what are now Lynde Street and Staniford 
Street ; and they could see the gouts of blood 
running out from the tails of the carts as tliey 
stood upon the roadway. Even in the hardest 
press of a cab, when eager to strike a train 
on the Northern railways, I never can drive 
throug;h Staniford Street without thinking of 
that dripping red rain. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 145 

Since these words were first printed 1 have 
received the following note of a similar tradi- 
tion from a Western correspondent : — 

" Joseph Dvar, a boy in B(jston at the time 
of the Battle of Bnnker Hill, nsed to relate 
that he. with his brother and other boys, saw 
the wounded British soldiers carried from the 
boats that brought them over from the battle- 
field, and followed the carts through the 
streets, watching the blood drip into the 
dust." 

At the foot of Winter Street in Boston, on 
the north corner, there has stood since my 
memory a wooden house, where is now Tuttle's 
shoe shop. This is on tlie spot, I may say in 
passing, where I first met John Brown, of 
Kansas. The New England Emigrants' Aid 
Board held its office in that place for years. 
The daughter of the lady who occupied the 
house in 1775 told me that an English private 
was billeted there in the winter l)efOre the siege 
of Boston. At nightfall on the 18tli of April 
he came into the house for his kit, his musket, 
cartridge-boxes, knapsack, and the rest, being 
one of the detachment which was ordered out 
under Colonel Smith for the surprise intended 



146 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

by the uight niarcli to Concord. The lady said 
to hhn, " When shall you be back, Gibson ? " 
and Gibson said, " God knows, madam," and 
bade her good-by. They never saw him again. 
This anecdote has some worth, for it completely 
relieves Mrs. General Gage from the scandal in 
the early histories, which intimate that because 
she was an American by birtli she confided her 
husband's secrets to the American patriots. If, 
in every house where a soldier was billeted, it 
was known at six o'clock that a thousand men 
were going out, we need not look to the Prov- 
ince House for the source of the information 
which Paul Revere and William Dawes car- 
ried out north and south at eight o'clock that 
evening. 

In the year 1837 the accomplished student 
Mr. James Trecothick Austin delivered a lecture 
on the siege of Boston, which I heard and which 
I afterward read. It is a pity that this lecture 
should not now be printed. He had a good deal 
of local information which he had derived from 
survivors of the Revolution. I remember that 
he said that, as the sun went down, Beacon Hill 
was crowded with the Boston people who were 
quite ignorant of what had happened in Middle- 
sex County ; that, as night came on, they could 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 147 

see the flashes of the muskets of the returning 
British forces and the victorious militia as they 
(ired upon each other in the retreat of Milk Row, 
whicli we now call Kirkland Street.^ 

It is only a few years since the old stone 
powder-house was removed which stood, in Revo- 
lutionary days, surrounded with salt marsh, 
where the Cottage Farms bridge now crosses the 
Charles River. When General WashinQ^ton was 
first making his rounds to the various posts of 
the Continental x\rmy besieging Boston, he 
visited this powder-house. The day of the visit 
is to be found in the " American Archives." As 
he came out, the officer in charge called him aside 
and said that he supposed he understood that 
the kegs of powder which they had been inspect- 
ing were filled with black sand. This had been 
one of the precautions of General Ward, who 
had deceived even his own staff as to the amount 
of what is called, in the letters of that time, 
"the essential article." It is of this visit that 
the tradition is that Washington did not speak 
for an hour afterward. At that moment, with- 
out allowing anything for the cannonading, he 

i"In a barn at Milk Row 
Ephraiiii Bates and Monroe 
And Haker and Abram and I made a bed." 



148 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

had but nine musket-charges of powder for each 
man for his whole army.^ 

When T was in college, Jared Sparks, always 
a near friend, was lecturing on American history. 
I stopped after a lecture to ask him .some ques- 
tion, and he told me this story of the Battle of 
Princeton. I dare not call it my personal touch 
with the Revolution, but it removes me from it 
by only one gap. Sparks told me of the Mas- 
sachusetts officer, whose name he did not give me, 
who was at Princeton on the day of the battle. 
There is a certain bridge, which the well-informed 
reader will remember, wdiich it was important to 
destroy. Washington instructed this Massachu- 
setts captain to take a file of men and destroy 

1 Nobody chooses to care now, but General Miles, in an article 
in the North American Review in September, 1900, revealed to 
the world the secret that when we went to war with Spain the 
nation had not powder enough for half a day's supply of one 
pitched battle. Everything in the invasion of Cuba had to be 
postponed till we could make powder enough for our war. 
Every home critic, our excellent friend ]\Ir. Dooley, for instance, 
and one might say the whole press, ridiculed and abused the 
Government for its delays. In truth, the Government was 
waiting until it had powder enough to fight with. It seems to 
me immensely creditable to the War Department that no hint 
of this secret slipped out. When General Miles had a right to 
make it known, no one whom I ever heard of, of all the critics, 
even read the articles. I never saw any newspaper which con- 
descended to mention this curious fact. The war was already 
a " back number." It was history, and the modern tlieory of 
Joux'nalism is that newspapers have no business with history. 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE THEE 149 

the l^ridge. The captain touched his hat and 
said, '" Are there enough men ? " and Washing- 
ton said, " Enough to be cut to pieces." This 
gentleman told Dr. Sparks afterward that as 
he went back to his men he pinched his cheeks 
for fear that they should see that he was pale ; 
and they destroyed the bridge.^ 

1 A courteous correspondent tells me that the officer in com- 
numd lived to old age and often repeated the anecdote. It was 
Captain Varnuin of the Massachusetts line. And iny near 
friend and companion in arms (have 1 not sle2)t under his 
V)lankets?). Dr. Alfred Alexander Woodliull gives me the fol- 
lowing note regarding the bridge : — 

" The bridge, or rather its stone successor, which belongs 
to the memory of the well-informed reader {Outlook, Jan. i, 
p. 89), I frequently cross in these days. This bridge, perfectly 
strong and commoilious, has lived through one entire century 
and parts of two others. The original bridge was wooden and 
spanned Stony Brook, on the old king's road between New 
York and Philadelphia (and the older Indian route between 
the Raritan and the Delaware), and its destruction by your 
Massachusetts friend after the battle was necessary to delay 
t'ornwallis, hastening" froui Trenton to overtake ^Vashington. 
It was cut down, the last of the work, tradition has it, under 
fire from the approaching British, and some at least of their 
rear guard were immersed in the icy water. Fortunately the 
brook was in freshet and Cornwallis was matiM-i illy delayed 
before he could find a ford farther up stream. It was Mercer's 
advance upon this bridge before the battle, to break the line of 
the enemy's communication, that brought on the action. He 
came in collision with British reenforcements en route to Tren- 
ton from Princeton, and to gain a commanding position near 
by and let the bridge go until that enemy was defeated was the 
first necessity." 



150 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

When John Stark cut off Baum and his 
party at Bennmgton, the history of the world 
changed, if we may trust Colonel Chesney. 
Stark was at this moment very angry with the 




John Stark. 
From the painting by U. V. Tenuey after the Trnmbull portrait. 

Continental Congress, which had snubbed him 
in some way. He would not tell them of his 
victory, but he wrote to the government of 
Massachusetts and of New Hampshire, whose 
militia he had commanded at Bennington, and 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 151 

he sent to Massachusetts " one Hessian gim and 
bayonet, one broadsword, one brass-barrelled 
drum, and one grenadier's cap taken from the 
enemy in the memorable battle fought at Wal- 
lomsac on the 16th of August last"; and 
requests that the same may be kept " in com- 
memoration of that glorious victory obtained 
over the enemy that day by the united troops of 
that State, those of New Hampshire and Ver- 
mont, which victory ought to be kept in memory 
and handed down to futurity as a lasting and 
laudable example for the sons and daughters of 
the victors, in order never to suffer themselves 
to become the pre}^ of those mercenary tyrants 
and British sycophants who are daily endeavor- 
ing to ruin and destroy us." 

The General Court said in reply : " These 
trophies shall be safely deposited in the archives 
of the State, and there remind posterity of the 
irresistible powder of the God of armies and 
the honours due to the memory of the brave. 
Still attended with like successes, may you 
long enjoy the just rewards of a grateful 
country." 

Memory is a treacherous ally. And I, who 
had often seen these trophies in the Senate 
chamber in the Boston State House, persuaded 



152 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

myself, before I was a man, that the Hessian 
Colors were also there : — 

" Hang there, and there, the dusty rags 
Which once were jaunty battle flags. 
And for a week, in triumph vain. 
Gay flaunted over bkie Champlain, 
Gayly had circled half the world, 
Until they drooped, disgraced and furled, 

That day the Hampshire line 
Stood to its arms at dress parade. 
Beneath the Stars and Stripes arrayed, 

And Massachusetts Pine, 
To see the great atonement made 

By Riedesel and Burgoyne." 

The truth of history requires that I should here 
acknowledge that Riedesel is really a word of 
three syllables. 

As a school boy I used to take my sled up to 
the hill on Boston Common where the monument 
to the heroes of the Civil War now is. The 
redoubts thrown up by the English in 1775 were 
then still in good condition, so that we could 
" play soldier," if we chose, in the protected 
trenches behind the works. These trenches, 
however, collected water, which became mud, 
and since I have become a man the ground has 
been wholly smoothed over. 

Lord Percy, afterward the Duke of Northum- 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 153 

bei'laiul, was a young man of spirit who coni- 
iiiaiuled a brigade of two or three regiments, 
and was disposed to teach them what war really 
w^as. Instead of putting them into quarters for 
the w^inter of 1774-1 775, he established them 
in tents on the line which extended from the 
head of West Street as it is now, as far as the 
parade-groinid where Chai-les Street separates 
the Common from the Pul)lic Garden. He 
found it pretty cold, and he doubled his tents, 
ei'owding the spaces between with hay and 
sti'aw. All this left a o-ood deal of ve^e table 
matter in the circle covered by each tent, of 
this the result was that the grass in those circles 
started earlier in the spring than other grass in 
the neighborhood. Until within thirty years 
these circles of grass could be distinctly traced ; 
but in the progress of civilization it has been 
necessary to lay a flagstone sidew'alk there, for 
the accommodation of the people who used to 
come up from the Providence railroad station 
to go to their business in Boston every day, so 
that the circles of grass, which till thirty years 
ago were so many memorials of the Revolution, 
have ))een destroyed. 

One of the familiar traditions in my own 
familv, told to us children, was that mv y:reat- 



154 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

grandmother, Mrs. Alexander Hill, was suffering 
from an illness which I suppose was a conse- 
quence of the hard rations of the siege. Her 
husband, Alexander Hill, went downstairs be- 
fore light in the year 1775-1776, and, as he 
opened the back door of their house at the North 
End, he stumbled across a bag which proved to 
contain a bit of fresh mutton. Fresh mutton 
was something which he and his household had 
not seen for months. From the fresh mutton, 
mutton broth was made for my great-grand- 
mother as long as it lasted. 

As this story was told on successive Thanks- 
giving days, we children conceived the vague 
impression that the Angel Gabriel descended 
from heaven with the bag of mutton, wdiich he 
left at "Grandpa Hill's" door. But, as time 
rolled on, history revealed the truth that Major 
Moncrieffe, who was an old brother in arms of 
General Putnam, received from Putnam a " pres- 
ent of fresh meat." And, on the 31st of July, 
Dr. Eliot thanks Daniel Parker for two quarters 
of mutton smuggled in from Salem. 

The charming Murray letters, just now pub- 
lished, reveal to us an arrangement which is not 
mentioned in the histories. Through a consider- 
able part of the " Siege of Boston " friends were 



THE LAST LEAVES OX THE TREE L55 

permitted to meet under a flag of truce on the 
two sides of Roxbury line at tlie neck. Appar- 
ently you could send in a half a dozen eggs to a 
friend or could send out a paper of pins. 

In Januar}^ of 1776, Burgoyne, who Avas 
among the people besieged, wrote a play which 
was called '• The Blockade of Boston," and this 
play was acted by the British officers at Faneuil 
Hall. A venerable kinswoman of mine, Miss 
Letitia Baker, told me, as late as the year 1835, 
that she went to Faneuil Hall that nisfht to see 
the play under the escort of an English officer. 
As the play advanced, a sergeant rushed in, cry- 
ing, " The Yankees are attacking Bunker Hill ! " 
This seemed a part of the plav, until the highest 
officer preseiit came out 'sayijig, " Officers to 
their posts ! " and Miss Letitia Baker, then six- 
teen years old, I believe, had to find her way 
home without the attendant who had taken her 
to the play. 

I am afraid that these desultory anecdotes, if 
I may call them such, of my personal relations 
with the Revolution must end when I say that, 
under the trvhdance of that charm in q; o;entleman, 
Mr. Henry Armitt Brown, of Philadelphia, I 
visited Valley Forge some twenty years ago. 
The most interesting thing in the visit which 



156 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I recall is this : that the fortification by which 
the barracks were protected from an}^ sadden 
incursion from Philadelphia, having been thrown 
np in the midst of arable land, presented a certain 
difficulty to the ploughman in after years. Of 
this, the consequence is that a large square 
" reservation," so to speak, is now covered by a 
heavy growth of woodland which would all have 
been under the plough for a hundred and twenty 
years but for the accident that these works had 
been thrown up there. So it happens that the 
forest, now more than a century old, is the monu- 
ment of the Valley Forge encampment. 

Harrison Gray Otis, Senator of the State of 
Massachusetts in Congress, and Mayor of Boston, 
sent to me, in the year 1844, on the 17th of De- 
cember, these notes : — 

" On the 19th of April, 1775, I went to school 
for the last time. In the morning, about seven, 
Percy's brigade- was drawn up, extending from 
Scollay Building [where Scollay Square now is] 
through Tremont Street, nearly to the bottom 
of the Mall [by this Mr. Otis means the Mall 
of English elms, and the " bottom of the Mall " 
means the head of West Street], prepared to 
take up their march for Lexington. The Cor- 



THE LAST LEAVES ON THE TREE 157 

poral came up to me as I was going to school, 
aud turned me off, and told me to pass down to 
Court Street, which I did, and came up School 
Street to the schoolhouse. [This is where the 
ladies' room at Parker's now welcomes lunching 
people every day.] It may be imagined that 
great agitation prevailed, the British line being 
drawn up a few yards from the schoolhouse 
door. As I entered school I heard the announce- 
ment, ' Deponite libros,' and I ran home for fear 
of the resfulars." 

o 

/ 

I forget who told me what I know to be true, 
that the critical delay which held that reenforce- 
ment so long waiting on Common Street, hap- 
pened in this fashion, which shows what red tape 
was and is in the English service. These troops 
were Avaiting for the Marines. " Where are the 
Marines, where are the Marines ! " Finally the 
proper orderly was found. " Did you take 
the order for the ^lariues last night ? " " Yes, 
sir, and I left it at Major Pitcairn's quarters." 
Alas, Pitcairn had gone with the first detach- 
ment ; it was already four hours since he had 
given the order to fire on Lexington Common, 
and here we are on Common Street at eight 
o'clock in the morning, waiting for somebody at 



158 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the North Eud to cut open his order for the 
Marines. 

The coasting scene, ahuost celebrated in local 
history, belongs on School Street, where the sleds 
of the Latin School boys ran down daily on the 
snow from the point where is now the Bellevue 
House, as far as Wasliington Street. General 
Haldimand was quartered at the corner of what 
is now Province Street. His servant broke up the 
coast by putting ashes and dirt upon it. The 
first class of the Latin School waited upon 
Haldimand, and told him that coasting was one 
of their "inalienable rig-hts." Haldimand was 
very civil to them. He did not want to make 
more disturbance than he could help. He sent 
for his servant and scolded him, and told him to 
put water on the coast every night when it 
would freeze. He asked the delegation from 
the Latin School to take a glass of wine with 
him. This may be called the first triumph of 
the Revolution. The story of this interview 
was told to me in 1844 by Jonathan Darby 
Robins, who was one of the committee who 
interviewed Haldimand on this celebrated occa- 
sion. I am sorry to say that I cannot find any 
reference to the matter in Haldimand's rather 
voluminous correspondence. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



159 



This is a good place to say that the philolo- 
gists have not found in print any earlier use of 
coast for a slide on a sled than the letter of the 
time describing this interview. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

I began these papers with a story of a little 
Italian girl who paid me 
the high compliment of 
asking if I were George 
Washington. I was obliged 
to confess that I was not. 
It was only the summer 
before that I had been 
reading a lecture on 
" Washino-ton in Private 
Life " at the Pennsylvania 
University in Philadelphia. 
A courteous lady joined 
me in the street-car as we 
rode home and asked me if I were personally 
acquainted with my hero. I was well pleased at 
the tribute thus paid to the vividness of my 
pictures of him. But to have had an intimate 
conversation with him, I must have been one 
hundred and fifteen years old at the time when 




George Washington. 

From a lare stipple engraving 

after the Houdon bust. 



160 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I met her. I did not however, suggest this to 
her, but I was obliged to disown her compli- 
ment, as afterward I disowned that of the little 
Italian. 

As the reader will have to follow along with 
more or less memorials of all the other Presi- 
dents, I think I will put in here, as a sort of 
prologue to the memories of the century, some 
notes of different reminiscences of George Wash- 
ington which I have stumbled upon sometimes, 
when I have come in touch with people wdio 
had seen him and known him. I have outlived 
the period when there was a determination to 
make him a demi-god, but that period continued 
well down the nineteenth century. As late as 
1864 I served as the junior member of a com- 
mittee of the Massachusetts Historical Society 
which was to edit the Heath-Washington letters, 
owned by the Society. So soon as the com- 
mittee met I said that I would not serve unless 
we determined from the first to print the letters 
as we found them, "swear-words" and bad 
spelling and all. We had fresh in memory the 
discussion between Dr. Sparks and Lord Mahon 
as to Sparks' treatment of the Mss. which he 
had published. The veteran chairman of the 
committee, my kind and accomplished friend. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 161 

Mr. Thomas Coffin Amory, said at once : " I 
think Mr. Hale is rig-ht. I think the time has 
come when we can afford to tell the truth about 
Washington." He really meant that, at the 
l)eginning of the century, it was better to hold 
up Washington's authority as that of a superior 
being — not to be discussed, and far less to be 
doubted, 

I am sure he was wrong. I have studied 
Washington more carefully, I think, than I 
have studied any life except Franklin's, and I 
am sure that the more we know of Washington, 
and the more we can tell of him, the better all 
round. Writing, as I do, at the period of the 
Judge Marshall Centennial, I am tempted to say 
that a careful reading again of some of Marshall's 
chapters in his " Life of Washington " is well 
worth the while of any one who wants to know 
the truth. 

As I lost my chance of talking with Washing- 
Um by being born a quarter of a century too 
late, I have but a few anecdotes of him which 
have not, before my time, been put on paper. 
In the Washington Number of '' Old and New," 
edited by me and published in February, 1872, the 
student will find a few studies of that time for 
which it is worth while taking down the volume. 

VOL. I. — M 



162 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

There is an account of Braddock's defeat, 
where you would not look for it, in Day's " Sand- 
ford and Merton," where an old soldier tells the 
story, in 1783, observe, to the prigs who are 
named Tommy Merton and Harry Sandford. 
The year after that defeat Washington came on 
to Boston for the first time. He came on horse- 
back, remember, with two aides, and four or five 
black servants. There were also led horses to 
ride upon as relays for the others. It is pity of 
pities that the original diary of that year, writ 
by his own hand, has been " conveyed " from the 
collection now at AYashington. Sparks saw it, 
but made little use of it. I think it was stolen, 
and that afterward it appeared in some auction. 
And I print this in the hope that a faithful 
reader can give a hint as to where it is now. 

I will put in a parenthesis here what seems to 
me a good story about this valuable lost manu- 
script. There was some suspicion that it was in 
one of the great Chicago collections, and our 
friend Mr. Robert Lincoln was kind enough to 
try to look it up for me. But he did not suc- 
ceed. Mr. Lincoln told me that he did go to a 
great collector and ask him to trace it for us. 
When, the next week, he returned to inquire 
about it, the virtuoso said, " Send to Mr. Hale 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 163 

to say that I have not Washington's diary for 
1746, but that I shall be glad to show him a 
lock of General Washington's hair." 

An enterprising Philadelphia publislier once 




x7 ) 







The Washington Letter. 

asked me to furnish for liim twenty original 
stories of Washino;ton. The contract was too 
large even for my audacity, and I had to decline. 
But I did try my liand on starting a tradition, 
and if we all acknowledge tiiat we take a part, 
there is no harm in handing it along. I WTote 



164 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

a story which represents Washington with his 
aides, Mercer and Stewart, as clattering along 
" Marlboro Street," now Washington Street, in 
Boston, coming in from the great Governor 
Shirley's house in Roxbury, and stopping at the 
" Cromwell's Head," in School Street, then the 
best inn in town. 

(Good doctrine, this, for young Colonel Wash- 
ington, if, as people choose to think, he was of 
Cavalier family. Observe that this was one 
hundred and five years since Charles the First's 
head had been cut off, when we stand under 
Cromwell's and give our bridle-rein to the groom. 
Washington's memories of Charles Avere about 
as old as ours of Washington are.) 

In my story, which the reader will find in its 
place, the Latin School boys, from the school just 
above, on School Street, where the Franklin 
statue now stands, come down to see the little 
Virginian company. Washington asks one of 
them to mount his horse. He sees that the boy 
has an older friend, and calls a black servant 
for a horse for him, meaning to take a short 
ride with them. But, alas ! he is called into 
the Town House to meet Shirley, and the 
two Bostonians have to take their scamper 
alone. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 165 

But, half an hour after, they all three meet 
again under Cromwell's Head. 

"Have you enjoyed your ride?" the Virginia 
Colonel asks them. 

" Oh, certainly," says the boy, who proves to 
be Josiah Quincy. " We went right up to the 
Common, and I made Mr. Hancock ride three- 
times round the Wishing Stone. And, Colonel 
Washington, what you wish there will certainly 
come to pass." 

" And what did you wish ? " asked the Vir- 
ginia Colonel, laughing. 

The boy blushed, but he answered bravely, 
" I wished that all the Continental troops might 
be in one great army, and that Colonel Wash- 
ington may be Commander-in-Chief." 

They all laughed heartily, and Mercer, who 
had joined them, laughed as well. And Wash- 
ington said, "And I will wish that our friend 
Mr. Hancock here may be President of the Con- 
tinental Assembly, when that grand day comes 
round." 

Now there are many stories in Plutarch which 
have no more foundation than this. There is no 
proof that this is false, so let us hope that it is 
true. To the New York Observer, with which 
I have an old battle on this point, I will observe 



166 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



that the story belongs to a class of literature 
sometimes called " parable " and sometimes 
fiction. 

It was on this journey that Washington fell 
iii love with Mary Philipse, who married, not 
George Washington, alas ! but Colonel Morris, 

who had been, 
like Washington, 
an aid of Brad- 
dock's. Not many 
years ago I vis- 
ited the Brad dock 
battle-ground, 
through which 
the Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad now 
runs. As you go 
from Bessemer to 
Braddock, a few 
miles from Pitts- 
burg, you pass 
through the scene of the Braddock massacre. 
From this place I took the train home, to find 
on my table, of course, a note from an English 
correspondent, asking me if nobody wanted 
pretty Mary Philipse's picture — picture by 
Copley, observe. I tried to make the Yonkers 




]\I\i;v I'niLU'SE. 
From an engraving by J. Rogers. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 167 

people buy it, but they did not '' seem to want 
it." And I suppose the picture is in England 
still. Another portrait of Mary Philipse, also 
by Copley, is preserved in this country. This 
iKS the picture followed in our engraving.' 

Governor Edward Everett awakened a new 
enthusiasm for Washington by his oration which 
he delivered everywhere in 1856 and later. The 
object, as publicly announced, was to raise money 
for the purchase of Mount Vernon ; and in this 
enterprise he succeeded. The estate is now the 
Nation's, and one likes to say that everything in 
the arrangement of the home itself is just what 
we could wish. His own wish, everywhere 
freely expressed, was to make one effort for 
uniting in a matter of sentiment the Northern 
and Southern people, who were so hopelessly 
divided in politics. It was his one last effort 
to reconcile the two. 

His " Life of Washington," published in the 
same interest at the same time, contains a good 
deal of what he had himself picked up in con- 
versation and elsewhere. His father, my grand- 

1 That picture is now the property of I\Ir. Amherst Morris, 
great-grandson of Colonel Roger INIorris and Mary Philipse, 
whom Morris married. He was one of Braddock's aids at the 
battle, and was wounded there. Our picture folloMS an en- 
graving by J. Rogers. 



168 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

father, had delivered an oration on Washington 
in 1800, when the whole country was mourning 
him, just after his death. In this address I 
found the suggestive and important statement 
that so thoroughly did Washington reckon him- 
self a citizen of the country, and bound by the 
duties and habits of the Virginia country gentle- 
man, that after he had retired from the Presi- 
dency of the Nation, he served once at least as 
foreman of a jury in the regular business of the 
county court. 

It is with some hesitation that I add here, 
what I am afraid is true, though I never heard 
it said aloud until the year 1901. It belongs 
with the discussion as to the third term for the 
Presidency. The statement now is that Wash- 
ington did not permit his name to be used for a 
third election because he had become sure that 
he could not carry the State of Virginia in the 
election. He would undoubtedly have been 
chosen by the votes of the other States, but he 
would have felt badly the want of confidence 
implied in the failure of his own " country," as 
he used to call it in his earlier letters, to vote 
for him. It is quite certain, from the corre- 
spondence of the time, that, as late as Septem- 
ber of the year 1796, the year in which John 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 169 

Adams was chosen President, neither Adams 
nor Washington knew whether Washington 
meant to serve a third time. 

I have been assured by gentlemen who lived 
in northern Virginia that the universal impres- 
sion there was that the slaves of the Washington 
plantation hurried Martha Washington's death 
because their own liberty was secured, by Wash- 
ington's will, after her death. I do not believe 
that this bad statement can be authenticated. 
But there is no doubt, I believe, that Madison 
had made a similar will liberating his slaves 
after Mrs. Madison's death, and that he changed 
his will on account of this rumor with regard to 
the Washington slaves. 

Mr. Everett told me that Colonel Pickering 
told him that Washington's hand was the larg= 
est hand which he remembered to have particu- 
larly noticed. I suppose the anecdote is in 
print, but I lieard it in conversation, which 
gives the detail of his anger at Monmouth 
when he met General Lee. Washington asked 
him why such a column was retiring, and Lee 
said that the American troops would not stand 
the British bayonets. Washington replied, 
" You damned poltroon, you have never tried 
them ! " As this relates to the exact truth of 



170 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the battle, the story seems probable. Since 
printing this anecdote I have a note which gives 
the detail of tlie story as told by an eye-witness.^ 
Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-President with 
Abraham Lincoln, told me that when he entered 
Congress in 1842 there were Virginians still there 
who knew Washington personally. They said 
that the neio;hl3ors resrarded him as a clear- 
headed, sensible man, whose opinion was worth 
having, and who was well worth consulting in 
farming matters or in common business. He 
thought that in Washington's later years this 
neighborly feeling quite overruled the estimate 
which the same people had of his service to the 
country. 

1 " David Breadiug was temporary aide to General Maxwell 
at Monmouth, New Jersey. Maxwell sent Breading to find 
General Washington, and to report to him Lee's action in re- 
treating when AVashington had ordered otherwise. He found 
Washington, and the General said to him : ' Young man, can 
you lead me to General Lee V ' Breading replied that he could. 
The General said: 'Lead on, and I will follow.' They went 
at furious speed, and found General Lee. Washington said : 
' AVhy have you acted thus?' and swore at him in no mild 
terms. My grand-uncle, David Breading, narrated this to me, 
himself being the actor. 

"As Mr. Hogg and his ancestors were good church mem- 
bers, perhaps the damned poltroon of your anecdote may be the 
" no mild terms" of their recollection. When one considei-s 
the provocation, it w'ould seem easy to pardon the Father of his 
Country had he used some very much stronger imprecations." 
— From a note by Dr. WoodhulL 



Proeeiiiiloii. 



BosTOji, Oct. 19; 1789. 

AS this tovsTi is ehoitly to be honoured with a visit from the PRESIDENT of the United States: 
In order thai we may pay «ur respects to him, in a manner whereby every inhabitant may see so 
illustrious and amiable a character, and to prevent the disorder and danger which must ensue froctt 
a great assembly of people without order, a Committee appointed by a respectable number of in- 
habitatils, met for the purpose, recommend to their Fellow-Citizens to arrange ibemselves in the following or- 
der, in a 



CESSION, 



It is also recommended, that the person who shall be chosen as head of each order of Artizans, Trades- 
men, Manufacturers, Sec. shall be known by displaying a WHITE FLAG, with some device thereon expres- 
sive of their several callings, and to be numbered as in the arrangement that follows, which is alphabetically dis- 
posed, in order to give general satisfaction. --The Artizans, &.c. to display such insignia of their craft, as they 
can conveniently carry in their hands. That uniformity may not be wanting, it is desired that the several 
Flag-staffs be SEVKN feet long, and the Flags a taro souars. 



ORDER OF PROCESSION 

WUSICK. Goldsmlihj and Jewellers, 

Haii-Urcssers, 
Hallcrs and Furricfj, 
House Carpenters, 
Leather Dressert, and Leathci 
Makers, 

ndPoilrail Painleis, 



The Selcclmeti, 
Overseers of Ihe Paot, 
Town Treasurer, 
Town Clerk, 
Magiilrates, 

Consuls of France and Holland, 
The Officers of his MosuChrisiian Majceiy's Sijuadron, 
Tbe Rev. Clergy, 
Physicians, 
Lawyers, 

Merchanu and Trader*, 
Marine .Society, 
ftlasters of Vessels, 
Revenue Officers, 

Strangers, who may wish to attend. 
Bakers, . ... • No. 1. 

Blackstsilbs, tu. ■ • • No. 3. 

Block.makers, ...» ^o. 3. 

Boal.bullders, - . . ' No. «. 

Cabioel and Cbair-makers, . • No. 5. 

Ca^d■^D3ktr^ .... No. C. 

Covers. .... No. 7. 

No. 8. 



Chi 



■s, &c 



nJ Coach. [ 

id Walch.n 
Coopers. 
Coppen ' ' " 
Cordwa 
Distiller 

Duck Man4facturers, 
Engravers, 
Glaziers and Plumbers. 

H . B.— In tbe above acran 
m.ntioQed, to which tbeyare 
"Whitesmiths and other work' 

£acb dirisioQ of tbe above 
Artizans, ftc. forming at the Soutii 



No, 12, 
No. 13. 
No. 14. 
No. IS. 
No, IB. 



Ma 

Mnst-m.Tkers, 

Mathematical Tnstrument-maKet's, 

Millers, . . , . 

Painters, . . * . 

Paper Slainert, 

Pewtcrers, 

Printers, Book.binders and Stationers, 

Ri9«e,s. 

Ropc-mtkets, 

Saddlers. 

S.iil.maker«, 

Shipwrights, to Include Caulkers, Ship-jo 

Head-biiilJera and Sawyers, 
Sugai-boilers, 
■rallow-Cbandlcrs,&c, 
Tanners. 
Taylors,. 

Tin-plate Workers, 
TohacconisLs . • . 



Upbolslercrs, 
Wha/fingcrs, 
WheclwrighU, 



No. IT. 
No. ID. 
No. 19. 
No. 20. 
No. 21. 

No. 22. 
No. 23. 
No. 24. 
No. 25. 
No. 26. 
Ke. 27. 

No. 2B. 
No. 23, 
No, 30. 
No. 31. 
No. 32. 
No, 33. 
No. 34, 
I No. 35. 

No. 36. 
No. 37. 
No, 88. 
No. 3». 
No. 40. 
No. 41. 
No. 42. 
No. 43. 
No. 44. 
No. 4S, 
No. 46. 



When tbe front of the 
tbca be djrecteil to open tbe column — one half of each rani 
to foriD as avenue through which the President is to pass, 

Iris requested that tbe several School-masters coiii!;.ct 
grderai the Marshalli shall direct. 

Tilt MariDC Society is desired to appoint some person l( 



some trades are omitted— fi-ora the idea, that they would incorporate themselves witli the branches 
r attached. For instance— it is supposed, that under the head of BlacksmiUu, tbe Armourers, Cutlers, 
n, would be included ; and the same with respect to other trade; 
seat is requested to meet on such paradC/as it may agree on, i 
ad thereof. Tbe Marshalls will then direct in what manner t 



nd march into the Mall— No. I of the 



Proces 

; moving lo tn< 

their Scholars 



reinityofihe town, it will halt, and ibe whole will 
right, aud the other half to the left— and then face inwards, so as 
to be erected at tiie State-House, 
to the neighbourhood of tbe State-Bouse, and form them lO such 



.ngc and accompaiiy the 



The Bulletin issued ox the Occasion of Washington's Entrance 
INTO Boston in 1789. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 173 

Our dear old Josiah Quincy, college president 
when I was an undergraduate, was one of John 
Hancock's aides when Washington came to Bos- 
ton in 1789. When he was ninety years old, 
Mr. Quincy told me that, in one way and an- 
other, he frequently saw Washington in the days 
when he was in Boston. Quincy had to render 
to him the fit courtesies of the State. He said 
that although Washington had then had very 
wide experience in life, there appeared, mixed 
in with the manners of a perfect gentleman, a 
certain shyness, snch as you might see in any 
man who lived a good deal without the society 
of other people. " Exactly," Mr. Quincy said, 
" as you have met a fine country gentleman 
from one of the smaller towns who was spend- 
ing the wdnter in the Legislature at Boston." 
He implied, that is, that in Washington's per- 
sonal manner, while he quite understood the 
important dignity of his position as President, 
there lingered still the traces of what might 
be called the shyness of the life of a plantation. 
I am almost sure that Mr. Quincy used the 
word " shjTiess." 

An old parishioner of mine once told me that 
the day when Washington entered Boston in tri- 
umph, — that is, on the 17th of March, 1770, he 



174 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

took up his headquarters at the best public house 
in Boston, which was at the head of State Street, 
until then called King Street. According to my 
old friend's account, General Howe had occupied 
the same inn. The mother of my informant 
was the daughter of the keeper of the inn, and 
was a little girl playing about the house, and, of 
course, interested in all that passed. Washing- 
ton, with his usual kindness to children, called 
the child to him and said, " You have seen the 
soldiers on both sides ; which do you like best ? " 
The little girl could not tell a lie any more than 
he could, and, with a child's frankness, she said 
she liked the redcoats best. Washington laughed, 
according to my friend's story, and said to her, 
" Yes, my dear, the redcoats do look the best, 
but it takes the ragged boys to do the lighting." 
Tliis is one of many well-authenticated anecdotes 
which disprove the old demigod theory that 
Washington never smiled. 

Every new biography of Washington is better 
and better, because it reveals him to us as a man, 
and he is no longer a demigod. On another 
page is an autograph from a letter which has 
never been published. Older readers must ex- 
cuse what may interest younger readers — the 
little history of this particular scrap of writing. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 175 

I was sitting one night, when I had nothing bet- 
ter to do, examining and destroying okl papers 
of my father's. I came to an old letter, in a 
handwriting which I did not remember, which 
seemed like an article on the character of Wash- 
ington. I said to myself, " Surely, if papa did 
not choose to print this ten years ago, I need 
not save it now." I crushed the paper in my 
hand to throw it into the fire, when the signa- 
ture which the reader sees arrested my eye, and 
I found that the letter which I had been criticis- 
ing enclosed an autograph of Washington which 
a Virginia friend had thought my father would 
like to see. So near did I come to destroying 
the autograph! Moral. — Remember the Chi- 
nese law : that no piece of paper with writing 
upon it should ever be destroyed. 



THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 



VOL I. — N 



CHAPTER IV 



THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 
THOMAS JEFFERSON 

I HAVE already quoted from my grandfather's 
diary the words which seemed to liiin big with 
fate, "T. Jeffer- 
son chosen Presi- 
dent U. S.," and 
big with fate they 
were. My grand- 
father, a fine leader 
of the people in 
the fashion of his 
time, thought that 
dangers untold be- 
gan for the United 
States in that 
moment. He was 
right enough in 
thinking so. But he did not understand, and 
it seems to me that for five and twenty years 
nobody understood, that this country governs 

179 




Thomas Jefferson. 
After a painting by Bouch. 



180 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

itself, and that the backward and forward 
moves of Cabinets and Congresses have not, in 
general, a critical importance in the history 
of the comitry. They are by no means of 
that critical importance which the liveried ser- 
vants of the comitry think they are. I have 
said this already, but I shall often say it again, 
whenever any one gives me a chance. 

The men who made the Constitution builded 
better than they knew, perhaps. Whether they 
knew it or not, they made such arrangements 
that the American People governs America. 
True, there are people in America who are con- 
stantly harking back to the supposed analogy 
between their President and the sovereign King, 
between their Cabinet and an English Cabinet. 
Now, it is hopeless to undeceive Europe on this 
subject. Every writer on the Continent of 
Europe supposes that Mr. McKinley was a 
king, or that Martin Van Buren was a king. 
But on this side of the ocean we ought to 
know that every one of the Presidents has been 
the servant of the American people. 

Undoubtedly Thomas Jefferson, without mean- 
ing to inflict a serious injury on the fortunes of 
the young Nation, really thought he was to be 
a sort of king. But the young Nation was so 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 181 

much stronger than he was that, after he became 
President, he really fills the place in history 
which a fussy and foolish nurse fills in the biog- 
raphy of a man like Franklin, or Washington, 
or Goethe, or Julius Caesar, of whom the nurse 
had the charge. It is interesting in a fashion 
to know whether Master Julius Csesar wore his 
baby clothes six months longer than he should 
have done under our practice, but, as it appears 
when you read his own life, this has not proved 
a very important matter. In the same way it is 
interestinci; to know, how much fuss and how 
much folly there was in Jefferson's pretended 
oversight of the infant Nation, but when you see 
that apparently without his knowledge Fulton 
and Livingston were revolutionizing the world, 
that Eli Whitney was revolutionizing the world, 
that the pioneers in the Valley of the Mississippi 
were creating the history of to-day, that in spite 
of Jefferson and his policy the infant navy of 
the United States was forming itself and that 
her immense maritime commerce was coming 
into being, it is impossible to think that Jeffer- 
son's administration had that crowning impor- 
tance in history which his older admirers claimed 
for him. 

To tell the whole truth, the history of what I 



182 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

like to call the Virginia Dynasty, their failures 
and follies, their fuss and feathers and fol-de-rol, 
for the first quarter of a century, never got itself 
written down until twelve years ago. Mr. 
Henry Adams then published his very entertain- 
ing history of the years between 1801 and 1817. 
The more prominent actors in that period were 
skilful in covering their tracks, and have done 
so curiously well. Such books as Hildreth's 
book on the outside history of America — let me 
say modestly, such chapters as my own in the 
" People's History " — were therefore made up 
only from public documents and from the super- 
ficial contemporary view in the wretched news- 
papers of twenty-five years. This is the reason 
why our printed histories of the generation be- 
fore our own are neither correct nor interesting, 
nor in any sort important until we come down 
to 1861.^ Into this circle of chattering crickets 
there steps Mr. Henry Adams. He is the son 
of a great statesman, who is the son of another 
great statesman, who is the son of another great 
statesman, and all of his ancestors have left 
behind them full materials for history. Mr. 
Adams has lived, perhaps in an official capacity, 

1 I will speak at more length of this in Vol. II., Chap. II., in 
referring to the historians. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 183 

certainly with the respect deserved by such men, 
in the principal capitals of Western Europe. 
He has had ready access to the confidential cor- 
respondence of English, French, and Spanish 
diplomatic agents for the time of which he writes. 
In our own Department of State he is, of course, 
a welcome guest. And now, with a charming 
and pitiless impartiality, he draws all curtains 
back and reveals to us the frenzies, the follies, 
the achievements, and the failures of what 
people call the "government" between 1800 
and 1817. 

I have read many novels as the last ten years 
have gone by, but not one of them is so amusing 
as is this record of people who were trying to 
persuade themselves that they were great men, 
and even thought they were. In Mr. Adams's 
nine volumes, if my young friends the historical 
novelists of to-day only knew it, there is material 
for endless comedies which are not yet written. 

But the United States is absolutely convinced 
that the Nation is always right in what it under- 
takes. It must be confessed, also, that our habit 
of looking forward is so certainly fixed that our 
people care very little for then" history. They 
hardly care for it at all. And so it happens 
that Mr. Adams's History is passed by as you 



184 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

might pass by annals of the court intrigues of 
Hugh Capet. This is partly because it is new, 
partly because it is true, but mostly because it is 
all so far back in time as to come imder the 
head of a " back number," to borrow one of the 
expressions of our modern slang. His revela- 
tions make it clear that the work of Jefferson's 
regime and of Madison's and of the Congresses 
which met in their time was almost always 
foolish or frivolous. But who cares ? It is all 
eighty or ninety years ago. This revelation 
has been printed, published, and passed by with 
only the very slightest attention on the part 
of the general reader. 

One does notice, with a certain interest that 
since Mr. Adams's volumes were published, the 
old-fashioned indiscriminate praise of Jefferson 
has almost ended. In truth, there is hardly a 
recommendation of his from 1801 to 182G which 
anybody likes to quote. The annexation of 
Louisiana is the one great triumph of his admin- 
istration ; and he himself would not have pre- 
tended that he had sought for this. It was 
greatness thrust upon him. 

But I suppose we ought to insert here a few 
dates and forgotten names, if it is only to pro- 
pitiate Miss Jerusha Dryasdust, the accomplished 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 185 

principal of the high school in New North No- 
landville, when the first class takes "History in 
thirteen lessons." All she wants is dates and 
names. 

This calendar may l)riefly run thus : — 

"1803. The Texan, Phil. Nolan, killed by 
the Spaniards, and nobody at Washington cares. 

" 1805. Jefferson's second Presidency. Elec- 
toral vote, 1G2 to 14. 

" 1805. Bm-r sails down the Mississippi for 
the first time. 

" 1806, 1807. Berlin and Milan Decrees. 

" 1807, 1808. English Orders in Council. 

"June, 1807. The English frigate Leopard 
fires on the American ship Chesapeake, and 
takes four seamen from her. 

" December, 1807. Jefferson's Embargo, which 
paralyzes the commerce and agriculture of the 
country for a year. It lasted for the first nine 
months of 1808." 

With such abject disgraces Jefferson's second 
reif^rn ends and Madison's beo-ins. Jefferson 
retires to his home at Monticello, and thinks he 
is going to run the country from behind a screen, 
as an Italian runs Punch. 

But no! 



186 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

JAMES MADISON: AN UNWRITTEN 
TRAGEDY 

Poor James Madison ! The best fitted of any 
of tlie Virginian Presidents between 1801 and 




James Madison. 
After the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 

1825 ! A man of genius, learning, wisdom, 
integrity ! A man to whom the country was 
immensely indebted for what he did in making 
the Constitution and in securing its adoption. 
He became President ; and an ambitious man of 



JAMES MADISON 187 

his ability might well be proud of this. And 
now his administration stands in history as all 
mixed up with futile politics, with a useless war, 
which includes his own flight from his own 
capital ; a war only not disgraceful to the coun- 
try. Poor Mr. Madison ! 

As for '• poor Mr. Madison," I have been for 
twenty years trying to find some young drama- 
tist who would make for us a historical tragedy 
out of the details of the crisis of his life. Even 
Mr. Stephen Phillips might be willing to handle 
such a theme. Here is a wise man, a patriot, 
well equipped, well surrounded, ambitious, old 
enough, young enough. He has all the external 
conditions which a man need have, in the shape 
of houses, bread and butter, and a sky over his 
head, and money in the bank ; and, in general, 
good surroundings. And he is born in Virginia, 
which has taken upon herself, what nobody else 
cared for much, the administration of the new 
Nation. 

All this seems very fine. It is very fine for 
the moment. The only bitter drop in the cup is 
a drop which all men have always found bitter. 
For James Madison is eight years younger than 
Thomas Jefferson. (Note eight years, all astrol- 
ogers and wiseacres and Girondists of whatever 



188 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

type.) And Thomas Jefferson is in the saddle ; 
and James Madison is the Fitz-Eustace to his 
Marmion. Poor James ! He can write as well 
as his chief, or better ; his armor is as good, or 
better. There are who say his horse is as good 
as the chief's, or better. He knows more than 
the chief, and he thinks he can do as well as the 
chief, or better. Bnt that cursed misfortune of 
the eight years compels him for a certain eight 
years, between 1801 and 1809, to run on that 
chief's errands and to do what the chief says; 
to pidl the chief out of countless scrapes, and to 
take the responsibility for the chief's dreams or 
fancies or blunders. History is full of such 
miseries. It is like poor Lord North having to 
conceal the craziness of his young King, before 
1770; and that is one of the most tragical things 
in history. 

Now, here is the point which the dramatist is 
to see: in 1809 Thomas Jefferson retires and 
James Madison becomes President. Dear good 
soul, he thinks that at last he is going to have 
his own way. He is fifty-eight years old, five 
years more before the grand climacteric, which 
is very near the prime of a man's life. The 
Constitution which he has interpreted on paper 
is to be interpreted in fact, as he reigns. He 



JAMES MADISON 189 

moves into the White House, and so Fitz-Eustace 
mounts Mai'inion's horse. He proposes to forget 
this wretched vassalage of tlie past and to step 
forth a freeman on the enterprises before him. 

But just at that moment a set of young bloods 
from the West and South surround him. They 
have no care for history. The young American 
never cares for history, as I have said already. 
They tell him that this and this is to be done 
thus and so. They tell him that they mean to 
fiffht Eno-land, and that, as God lives, he must 
fight England. They tell him that he shall be 
President of the United States for another term 
only if they and theirs choose that he shall be 
President of the United States. So this poor 
Secretary of State for Thomas Jefferson, when 
he flatters himself that for once he is going to 
give his own dinner-party and ask his owm 
guests, finds that Henry Clay and John Cald- 
well Calhoun and a group of other young gen- 
tlemen of thirty years of age, more or less, who 
have the country behind them, are to dictate to 
him the policy of his administration ; and that 
he is to obey them for the last half of his life 
as he obeyed Mr. Thomas Jefferson for the eight 
years before. 

This reminds one of the aiimsino; storv which 



190 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the banker, Abraham Mendelssohn, the father 
of Felix Mendelssohn, used to tell of lihnself. 
He said that while he was a young; man, indeed 
while he was well forward in middle life, people 
introduced him as the son of Dr. Moses Mendels- 
sohn — " You will like to know the son of 
the great Dr. Mendelssohn." The great Dr. 
Mendelssohn, forgotten, I am sorry to say, by 
this reader, was the great metaphysician of 
those days. All of a sudden, however, as this 
good Mr. Abraham Mendelssohn walked the 
same streets, people began to introduce him as 
the father of Mendelssohn — "You will be glad 
to know the father of our great musician." So 
my poor James Madison, after having been Fitz- 
Eustace of Marmion, just as he approaches his 
grand climacteric, finds that he is to run the 
errands of Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay. 

Is not this tragic ? And in your drama here 
is the climax, such as hardly any student of 
history could have suggested — that at the crisis 
moment of poor Madison's life the great Napo- 
leon himself fell mortally wounded from his 
eagle flight. Madison had hoped that at least 
he Avas making himself an ally of the greatest 
conqueror of the world. But before his war was 
well begun, this great conqueror had lost the 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR ! 191 

greatest army which modern times had known, 
and was himself in flight from Moscow to his 
own capital. 

Leaving the tragedy — and coming back to 
" History in thirteen lessons " — Madison's war 
did not begin until 1812. 

The situation was complicated, of course, and 
xery badly complicated, ]3y the length of time 
required to receive news from Europe and to 
send instructions to Europe. One and another 
excitement harassed the thinking men until, on 
the 18th of June, 1812, Congress declared war. 

PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 

A bright Portuguese minister, whose name I 
have forgotten, said in the year 1812, or there- 
abouts, that the same Providence which takes care 
of idiots and drunkards takes care of the United 
States. I do not suppose he thought that this 
dictum would be remembered after ninety years, 
nor do I think that he supposed it was a rever- 
ent statement of an infinite truth. All the same, 
it does state such an infinite truth. And it is 
one worth remembering, especially by people 
whose business it is to write " leading articles " 
between one and two o'clock in the morning. 



192 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

What happened in 1810 has happened many, 
many times since ; and let us hope reverently 
that it will haj)pen many, many times more. 
That is to say, the " Power that makes for 
righteousness," whose name among most Eng- 
lish-speaking people is God, helps forward 
by his Immanent Presence, and by what we 
call laws resulting from his Immanent Pres- 
ence, all those people who are trying to 
do his will. And so it happened then — 
"happened," as we say irreverently — that the 
people of the United States, so far as they 
were trying to do right, were helped forward. 
It " happened " that there were a few ignorant 
and foolish persons at Washington and in 
Congress who thought they knew better than 
the people, by and large, of the United States. 
These few undertook to lead those many by 
the nose. Here is the Secretary of State, Mr. 
Monroe, for instance, sneering at commerce in 
an official conversation of 1811. He says to 
the French Minister : — 

" People in Europe suppose us to be mer- 
chants occupied exclusively wdth pepper and 
ginger. They are much deceived, and I hope 
we shall prove it. The immense majority of 
our citizens do not belong to this class, and are, 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR ! 193 

as much as your Europeans, controlled by prin- 
ciples of honor and dignity. I never knew what 
trade was ; the President is as much of a stranger 
to it as I." 

One cannot help asking himself, as he reads 
such words now, what the New York mer- 
chants of 1901 would say if they found in an 
English Blue Book that Mr. Hay was talking 
in this fashion to Lord Pauncefote. All the 
same, it was a fashion in which the Virginian 
Secretary of State spoke for the Virginian 
President. It expressed what he thought of 
the commerce by which the United States 
"whitened every sea," and which gave the 
United States all the power which she had 
in the world. It was honest commerce, too. It 
was the commerce of men who had what other 
people wanted and were willing to receive what 
America produces in return. It was such com- 
merce as fulfils the requisition of the Christian 
law that men must bear each other's burdens. 

Under our Constitution, Congress, and Con- 
gress only, can declare war against a foreign 
power. In this case, declaration of war had 
lagged in Congress under the certainty, only 
too evident, that there was no disposition on 
the part of the people to enter the new army. 



194 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



In the hope, which proved vain, that a declara- 
tion of war would excite the laggard volunteers, 
war was declared on the 18th of June, 1812. 
This was twenty-four hours after Castlereagh, 
in London, had announced that the English 
Government had determined to suspend the 
Orders in Council. It was about these very 
orders that all the declamation which led to 
the war had gathered. With an ocean tele- 
graph there would have been no war. " Within 
forty-eight hours Napoleon, about to enter 

Russia, issued the first 
bulletin of the Grand 
Array ; " these are the 
words of Mr. Adams. 
New England had 
looked with great dis- 
gust — alas ! I cannot 
say contempt — on the 
whole war enterprise. 
After Jefferson and the 
Democratic party had 
established themselves 
as the ruling party 
of Massachusetts, all this war business had again 
revolutionized that State, and Caleb Strong, the 
Federalist Governor, was well in the saddle. The 




Major-general Henry 

Dearborn. 

From an original etching by 

H. B. Hall. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — AVAR! 195 

Commander-in-Chief of the United States army 
was Dearborn, a Massachusetts man ; the Secre- 
tary of War was Eustis, who was another. But 
there was no local pride or interest in the new 
undertaking, and the whole tone of talk held it 
in ridicule, not to say scorn. So it was to the 
great astonishment, and I may well say satis- 
faction, of the Federal leaders that they found 
themselves making capital for the opposition to 
Madison from our successes of the sea, as, indeed^ 
Madison and his friends lost favor by their suc- 
cessive failures on the land. 

The policy of Jefferson and Madison had been 
to reduce the navy and to keep it at the lowest 
point possible. It was said on sufficiently good 
authority that the commanders of our four 
frigates took them to sea, on the outbreak 
of the war, as soon as they could, because they 
were afraid of orders from Washington which 
should keep them at home. But Isaac Hull, 
wlio was in command of the frigate Consti- 
tution, was at Annapolis, trying to ship a new 
crew. He had orders to go to New York in the 
Constitution, and he sailed in this duty on the 
5th of July, 1812. It was in this voyage that 
he fell in with the English fleet of five cruisers, 
and that the celebrated chase took place, of 



196 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



which men still tell in the forecastle. Hull 
came into Boston Harbor on the 26th of Jul}', 
after his escape. He was afraid to come up 
to the navy-yard, because Bainbridge was there, 
who was his senior, and he had orders to take 




The Capture of thk " (jUkkkikki; " r.x iiii '(.oNiiin j !(.)n ' 
From an engraving by Samuel Walker after the di'awiug by T. Birch. 

command of the Constitution on her arrival. 
Hull, therefore, stayed in the outer harbor, 
supplied himself with what he needed, and in 
less than a week sailed again toward New- 
foundland. It was on the 19th of August that 
he met the English frigate Giierriere. 

The Guerriere, under Dacres, had been well 



PEPPER AND GINGER.— WAR! 



197 




known on the American coast for many years 
in the offensive blockade which the arrogance 
of the English Govern- 
ment maintained. Now 
and then Dacres wonld 
stop an American mer- 
chantman, summon her 
crew on the deck, and 
pick out such English 
sailors as his ofhcers 
found on board. There 
are legends which I william bainbridoe. 

think must have been Portrait by J. W Oaivis. 

well founded, of her coming into port sometimes. 

But one can hardly be- 
lieve that Boston, New 
York, or Norfolk would 
welcome any such visi- 
tors. I think there is 
no doubt, however, that 
her officers knew person- 
ally the officers of the 
Constitution. 

It is a New Eng-land 

Commodore James Richard tradition, whicll probably 

has some foundation, 

Engraved from the portrait by 

Bowyer. that the Constitutiou on 




198 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



this cruise was manned with what mio;ht be 
called a picked crew. You will hear it said 
by old men that she had not a man on board 
who could not " sail the vessel." This is un- 
doubtedly an exaggeration, but I have no doubt 

that a large 
number of ship 
captains from 
the merchant 
marine, who 
could not go to 
sea because of 
the declaration 
of war, had 
shipped at An- 
napolis, or be- 
fore, on board 
the frigate. She 
was of larger 

Isaac Hull. "-" 




From an engraving after the original portrait 
by Gilbert Stuart. 



force than the 
Guerrierey and 
in less than thirty minutes of the battle that ship 
was left without a spar standing. What colors she 
had she struck, and her officers thought she was 
sinking. Hull took his prisoners on board and 
blew up the wreck. With his prisoners he arrived 
in Boston Sunday morning, the oOtli of August. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 



199 




The whole thing was dramatic in every detaih 

Rodgers and Decatur, with their squadi'on, 

entered Boston within 
forty-eight hours empty- 
handed, " after more than 
two months of futile 
cruising." The news- 
paper which announced 
their arrival aimounced 
also the melancholy in- 
telligence of the sur- 
render of General Hull 
at Detroit. General Hull 
was a veteran of the 
Revolution, and was an 

uncle of the Isaac Hull who was the hero of 

the day. There was as 

yet no daily paper in 

Boston. The news was 

made known by real 

" Extras." 

My father used to 

tell with gusto of the 

triumphant discussions 

in the newspaper office 

as to their announce- ^, ,, 

ment of the victory and Portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 



Commodore Eodgers. 
Povtniit by Henry Williiiiiis. 




200 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the defeat. lu the seaboard, which was crazy 
with excitement because of the sinking of the 
Enghsh frigate, it was easy to remind men 
that the Constitution had been built at their 
wharves, that she was manned by their seamen, 
that it was John Adams's foresight that had 
built her, and that the true policy of the Nation 
would have been the maintenance of a large fleet 
of such vessels. At the same moment it was 
easy to point out the folly of the administra- 
tion which had jwetended to invade Canada in 
the face of an active enemy, who had taken 
advantage of our want of preparation to take 
the aggressive with success. Here are some of 
the stories of the time which came to me, after 
a generation, with excellent authority. I print 
them for what they are worth because they are 
hen trovato. These anecdotes of Hull and Dacres 
I copy from a note-book of my own of 1894 : — 

" At the Authors' Guild dinner at Salem to- 
day the President told three stories of Hull and 
Dacres. 

" 1. He says that before the war the Guerriere 
was on our coast and that Hull entertained her 
officers at dinner on his ship (probably at the 
Charlestown navy-yard). They fell to talk of 
what they w^ould do if there w^ere war, and Hull 




m 



I OFTEN' have been told 

That the British seamen bold 

Could beat the tars of France neat and handy ; 

But ihey never found their match, 

Till the Yankees did them catch, 

For the Yankee tars for fighting are the dandy O. 

the Guerriere so bold 

On the foaming ocean rolled. 

Commanded by Dacres the grandee 0, 

For the choice of British crew 

That a rammer ever drew 

Could beat the Frenchmen two to one quite handy 0. 

When the frigate hove in view, 

said Dacres to his crew, 

Prepare ye for action and be handy 0, 

On the wcather-guage we '11 get her; 

And to make his men fight bciter, 

He gave to them gunpowder and good brandy 0. 

Now this boasting Briton cries, 
Make that Yankee ship your prize, 
You can In thirty minutes do it handy 0, 
Or twenty-five, I 'm sure 
You Mi do it in a score, 

1 will give you a double share of good brandy 0. 

When prisoners we 've made them, 
With switrhJ-ll wp will treat them, 

li Yankei-doodledan.lv 0; 




The British balls flew hot. 

But the Yankees answered not. 

Until they got a distance that was handy 

cried Hull unto his crew, 

We Ml try what we can do ; 

If we beat those Ixiasting Britons we 're the dandy 

The first broadside we poured 

Brought the mizzen by the board. 

Which doused the royal ensign quite handy 0. 

Dacres he did sigh. 
And to his officers did cry, 

1 did not think these Yankees were so handy 0. 
The second told so well 

That the fore and mainmast fell. 

Which made this lofty frigate look quite handy 0. 

says Dacres, we 're undone, 

So he fires a lee gun. 

Our drummer struck up Yankee doodle dandy ; 

When Dacres came on board 

To deliver up his sword, 

He was loth to part with it, it looked so handy 0. 

You may keep it, says brave Hull, 

What makes you look so dull; 

Cheer up and take a glass ofgood brandy ; 

Britons, now be still, 

Sinee we 've h, ,:,.iii vi.u in the gill, 
riia't b<-i:lsl liiinn D.irr^y^ the srandee 0. 



-^^^Mmm^^yMM^^^^^^^MoM 



A Broadside of 1812. 
From aa original in the possession of the author. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 203 

said that lie would briug them all into some 
American port. Dacres offered to bet one hun- 
dred guineas. Hull said no, but he would bet a 
hat. 

"When the Guerri'ere was taken, and Dacres 
gave up his sword on the quarter-deck, Hull 
returned it to him, but said, ' But I will thank 
you for the hat.' 

" 2. After the war Hull and his wife were at 
Gibraltar, and Admiral Dacres received them with 
great courtesy. On his own shijD he showed Mrs. 
Hull his own Bible Avhich his mother had given 
him. He said that when the Guerriere was 
burned, Hull asked him what he wanted him to 
send for specially, and Dacres asked that the 
Bible in his cabin might be saved. It was sent 
for, and this was the book. 

" Hull and Dacres were in Rome together, 
and the boys in the street used to call them 
light and shadow, Hull being short and stocky 
and Dacres tall and thin." 

"Mr. James Hale, writing in 1880, says : 'I 
remember seeing Commodore Hull march up 
State Street with Captain Dacres having his 
arm, after the capture of the Guerriere by the 
Constitution. And, in company with many 
others, saw, from one of the islands in the 



204 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

harbor, the fight between the Chesa2:)eake and 
Shannon. Two days before I saw poor Lawrence 
in State Street." 

Some of such anecdotes, perhaps all, must be 
true. There was more than one ballad printed 
and suno;. One which is said to have been writ- 
ten by James Campbell, a sailor on the Constitu- 
tion, begins with the words : — 

" Come all ye Yankee heroes, come listen to my song, 
I'll tell you of a bloody fight before that it be long. 
It was of the Constitution, from Boston she set sail, 
To cruise along the coast, my boys, our rights for to 
maintain. 

" So come rouze ye, Yankee tars, let it never be said. 
That the sons of America should ever be afraid." 

But the song which has lingered in memory, and 
is to this hour sunai; amons: seamen, is the ballad 
which w^e show in facsimile on another page. 

A great public dinner was given to Isaac Hull 
by the tow^n of Boston, and he was asked to sit for 
his picture to Gilbert Stuart, the celebrated artist. 
The portrait is in Faneuil Hall to this day.'^ 
Everybody is dead now, so that I will make 

^ Or affects to be. The real Stuarts were removed from 
Faneuil Hall a few years ago, to escape the danger of fire, and 
may now be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts. The copies 
in their places are so good that no visitor need regret the 
change. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 205 

bold to tell one of the anecdotes of the picture. 
Stuart was himself a great braggart, and he was 
entertaining Hull with anecdotes of his English 
success, stories of the Marquis of this and the 
Baroness of that, which showed how elegant 
was the society to which he had been accus- 
tomed in England. Unfortunately, in the midst 
of this grandeur, Mrs. Stuart, who did not know 
that there was a sitter, came in with her apron 
on and her head tied up with some handkerchief, 
from the kitchen, and cried out, " Did you mean 
to haA^e that leg of mutton boiled or roasted ? " 
To which Stuart replied, with presence of mind 
to be recommended to all husbands, " Ask your 
mistress." 

It was at the beginning of June, in 1813, 
the next year, that the exultation which had 
welcomed Hull and the Constitution received a 
heavy check in the battle fought off Boston 
Harbor, in which the ill-fated and unlucky 
Chesapeake surrendered to the English ship 
Shannon. Old people still tell you how on that 
Tuesday, the first day of June, men and women 
went to the high lookouts and hill-tops of Boston 
that they might see the Chesapeake bring in the 
Shannon for a prize. Our ship had been lying 
in " President's Roads," in plain sight of the 



206 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



wharves of Boston. According to Mr. Henry 
Adams's interesting and intelligible account, the 
Chesapeake could have fired only fifty-two shot. 
" She had been a beaten ship from the moment 
when she was taken aback after the loss of her 
forward sails." She was really captured by 

boarding in a tragical 
fight, in which, on her 
crowded deck, her crew 
had no officers, and in 
which all the English 
officers were killed or 
wounded. Of the fifty 
Englishmen who passed 
to the deck of the Chesa- 
'peake from the deck of 
the Shannon, no less than 
thirty-seven were killed 
or wounded. Mr. Adams supposes that Law- 
rence, the commander of the Chesapeake, who 
was himself killed, had been satisfied of his 
" easy superiority in the battle " by his successes 
in the Hornet. 

From an interesting letter from Mr. Buck I 
am able to copy a passage which shows the 
impression made at the time on a competent 
observer who saw the crews of both the frigates. 




James Lawrence. 
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 



PEPPER AND GINGER.— WAR! 207 

"From Captain Butler I learned that his 
vessel had been captured by the Shannon in 
1813. He was kept with tlie vessel a few days 
and then requested to bear a challenge from the 
commander of the British ship to Commander 
Lawrence of the Cliesapeake, then lying in Bos- 
ton Harbor. He was promised his freedom, 
with that of all belonging to his vessel, on con- 
dition of bearing said challenge. The offer was 
readily accepted. While a captive he had been 
a careful observer. The crew of the Shannon 
appeared to him to be a picked crew, very 
thoroughly drilled. As he took the challenge 
to Lawrence the crew of the Chesajjeake seemed 
to him in a demoralized condition. They had 
been in port just long enough, with perhaps 
special license to become thus. He felt quite 
sure wdiat the results would be if the challenge 
was accepted. The results were as he expected." 

Lawrence died before the ships reached Halifax, 
and his first lieutenant also died. Lawrence's dy- 
ing words, " Don't give up the ship," have become 
a proverb in the Nation. 

To those of us who grew up in Boston, a 
queer reminiscence of this defeat turned up more 
than a generation after, when Tom Hughes's 
"School Life in Rugby" was printed. For it 



208 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

was interesting to know that, while American 
boys were singing, " Bold Dacres came on board 
to deliver up his sword," English schoolboys 
were singing about the Chesajjeake and Shannon. 
It seems that Tom Hughes was at Rugby with a 
boy named Brooke, who was or was not a nephew 
of the captain of the Shannon. Here is Tom 
Brown's amusing account of the credit given to 
the English ballad by boys in the different forms 
at Rugby : — 

" Then followed other vociferous songs in 
rapid succession, including the Chesapeake and 
Shannon, a song lately introduced in honor of 
old Brooke ; and when they come to the words, 

'' ' Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now, my lads, 
aboard. 
And we'll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh ! ' 

you expect the roof to come down. The sixth 
and fifth know that ' brave Broke ' of the Shan- 
non was no sort of relation to our old Brooke. 
The fourth form are uncertain in their belief, 
but for the most part hold that old Brooke ivas 
a midshipman then on board his uncle's ship. 
And the lower school never doubt for a moment 
that it was our old Brooke who led the boarders, 
in what capacity they care not a straw." 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — war: 209 

Here is the whole ballad.^ It is evidently 
written by some one who had seen the Constitu- 
tion and Gicerriere ballad : — 

" The Cliesapecike so bold 
Out of Boston, I've been told, 
Came to take a British Frigate 

Neat and handy ! 
While the people of the port 
Flocked out to see the sport, 
With their music playing 

Yankee Doodle Dandy ! 

"Now the British Frigate's name 
Which for the purpose came 
Of cooling Yankee courage 

Neat and handy, ! 
Was the Shannon Captain Broke, 
Whose crew were heart of oak, 
And for fighting were confessed 

To be the dandy, ! 

" The engagement scarce begun 
Ere they flinched from their guns, 
AVhicli at first they thought of working 

Neat and handy, ! 
The bold Broke he waved his sword. 
Crying, ' Now, my lads, on board, 
And we'll stop their playing 
Yankee Doodle Dandy, ! ' 

1 Mr. Whitney enables me to reprint this ballad. 

VOL. I. — P 



210 MEMOEIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

*' They no sooner heard the word 
Than they quickly rushed aboard 
And hauled down the Yankee ensign 

Neat and handy, ! 
Notwithstanding all their brag, 
Now the glorious British flag 
At the Yankee's mizzen-peak 

Was quite the dandy, ! 

"Successful Broke to you, 
And your officers and crew. 
Who on board the Shannon frigate 

Fought so handy, ! 
And may it ever prove 
That in fighting as in love 

The true British tar is the dandy, ! " 

Here are the kindred verses from another 
Chesapeake and Shannon song : — 

" Silent as death the foe drew nigli. 

While lock'd in hostile close embrace, 
Brave Broke, with British seaman's eye. 

The signs of terror soon could trace. 
He exclaim'd while his looks did his ardor bespeak, 

Brave boys they all flinch from their Cannon ! 
Board, board, my brave messmates, the proud Chesor 
peake, 
Shall soon be a prize to the SJiannon. 

" Swiftly flew the words ; Britannia's sons 

Spread deatli and terror wliere'er they came, 
The trembling foe forsook their guns, 
And call'd aloud in mercy's name. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 211 

Brave Broke led tlie way, but fell wounded and weak, 
Yet exclaini'd — They have tied froni their Cannon! 

Three clieers, my brave seamen, the proud Chesapeake, 
Has lowered a flag to the Shannon ! 

" The day was won, but Lawrence fell, 

He closed his eyes in endless night, 
And oft Columbia's sons will tell 

Of hopes all bliglited in that fight. 
But brave Captain Broke, though wounded and weak. 

He survives to again ply his cannon, 
And his name from the shores of the wide Chesapeake, 

Shall resound to the banks of the Shannon." 

Chesapeake lias been such a wretched name in 
our na\al annals that I have been surprised that 
our naval people care or dare to retain it. The 
grand people may think there is no such thing 
as luck, but sailors think there is. If I had my 
way, we should preserve more of the historical 
naval names, like Ranrjer, Protector, Tyranni- 
cide, Bon Homme Richard, and Serapis. You 
could say " Poor Richard," if you wanted to put 
it in English. 

The account of Broke' s victory given in the 
Georo;ian Era is in these words : " Toward 
the close of the battle, Broke leaped on board 
the enemy's ship, and having saved the life of 
an American seaman, who called for quarter, re- 
ceived the stroke of a cutlass on the back of the 



212 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



head from the wretch whom he had spared. 
This wound had nearly proved fatal, and from 
its effects he never afterward recovered. His 
assailant was immediately cut in pieces by the 
sailors on the Shannon, and the Chesapeake be- 
came a prize to the English. The action, which 
. only occupied fifteen min- 
utes, was one of the most 
bloody and determined 
ever fought between two 
ships of their class in so 
short a time." 

For this achievement 
Broke received a gold 
medal, as well as the 
formal thanks of the lords 
of the admiralty, besides 
a sword of the value 
of one hundred guineas. 
The people of Suffolk subscribed more than 
seven hundred pounds for a piece of plate, and 
an Ipswich Club gave him a cup of the value of 
one hundred guineas. On the 2d of November 
he was made a baronet. The Shannon was con- 
demned unfit for further service. Broke's name 
was Philip Bowes Vere Broke. 

It is said that the Chesapeake never went to 




Captain Sir P. V. Bkijke. 

From an engraving by 

W. Greatbatch. 



PEPPER AND GINGER. — WAR! 213 

sea under an English commander ; that no man 
liked to walk the deck which had been stained 
by his companions' blood. The English Govern- 
ment maintained the name Shannon until two 
or three years ago, when the armored cruiser 
Shannon was lost. In our War of the Rebellion 
there was a Southern cruiser named the 
Chesapeake. 

Mr. James E. \Yhitney, Jr., is kind enough to 
send me the following note which gives the his- 
tory of the poor Chesapeake : — 

" The Chesapeake was sold in 1820 to Mr. 
Holmes of Portsmouth, England, who broke her 
up and sold the timbers which were of pitch pine, 
quite new and sound, for building purposes. 
Much was used in houses built in Portsmouth, 
but a larger part was bought by John Pierce, a 
miller of AVickham in Hampshire, who used it in 
constructing a new mill. The deck timbers were 
thirty-two feet long and eighteen inches square, 
and were placed, unaltered, horizontally, in the 
mill. The purlins of the deck were about twelve 
feet long, and served without alteration for joists. 
In 1864 the mill — a flour mill — was owned by 
a man named Goderick. Wickham is nine miles 
from Portsmouth." 

Old-fashioned people will remember how angry 



214 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

our fathers were because the English newspapers 
spoke of the Constitution and our other frigates 
as " pine built frigates." This gives interest to 
the statement that some of the Chesapeake tim- 
bers were of pine. It seems to me that an old 
joke applies here, that it made no difference 
what Jove's thunderbolts were made of if they 
proved to be thunderbolts. 

Some recent inquiry satisfies me that no 
American officer surrendered the Chesapeake 
in form. The ballad is quite correct which says 
of the boarders, " They hauled down the Yankee 
ensign." 



JAMES MONROE 



CHAPTER V 
JAMES ]MONROE 

WHEN Dean Stanley visited America a few 
years before his death, one of the queer, 
pregnant questions which he put to a gentleman 
who was welcoming hhn was, " What was the 
end of the Federal party ? " 

" As if I knew what was the end of the Fed- 
eral party ! " said his host to me, afterward, 
when he was deri('ril)ing the interview. And 
that ejaculation is a fair enough illustration of 
the curious difficulty which haunts almost all 
the political writers and historians. As I have 
said twenty times in these papers, people who 
are trained to read histories and to write them 
cannot rid themselves of the old superstitions 
which imply that the State of New York to-day 
is governed by Albany, that the State of Ohio is 
governed by the city of Columbus, or that the 
United States is governed from Washington. 

I ought not to say all people on the Continent 
of Europe. For Mr. James Bryce, who does 

217 



218 MEMORIES OP A HUNDRED YEARS 

understand these things, says somewhere that 
when he wrote there was a schoolmaster in 
Switzerland who understood the relation of our 
State Government with the National Govern- 




.lAMES MONROK. 

From the portrait by Vauderlyn. 

ment. But I never met this gentleman nor his 
writing. 

It is vastly easier to follow along eight years 
of Washington life in James Monroe's adminis- 
tration, and to call that the " history of 
America," than Jt is to read and to write the 



JAMES MONROE 219 

endless narrative of Avliat really happened in 
America between 1817 and 1825. The truth is, 
as I try to say in every chapter, if anybody could 
be made to believe it, that the people of America 
govern America. The various administrations 
run by the side of the chariot, they make a good 
deal of_ dust as they run, and the equerries and 
the escort sometimes think that they are the 
riders. All people on the Continent of Europe 
think that such persons are the rulers, while in 
truth the people in a thousand organizations, 
or without any organization, are carrying the 
country forward in their own way. Yet you may 
read many a " History of America " written in 
America which does not say one word of the 
affairs of any State, of forty-five " Sovereign 
States." 

The dynasty of Mr. Madison was broken in 
upon by the war with England. The war was 
none of his making, it was no part of his plan, 
but he could not help himself and it came. 
Fortunately for him and fortunately for the 
country, it was a short war. It was a war in 
which the people, shut up at home as they would 
have been had the Atlantic Ocean been an ocean 
of fire, were developing natural resources which 
are so enormous that to this day we are only 



220 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

scratching at the surface of our treasure. With 
the peace the Federal party died by a natural 
death. It had nothing to do. It was pledged 
to a strong central government. And now Jef- 
ferson and Madison had assumed powers which 
the old Federalist leaders had never dared to ask 
for. It had opposed the war with England, and 
peace with England had come. No man in 
America was fool enough to take up the broken 
fortunes of poor Napoleon, before whom every- 
body in the administration had l^een kneeling 
only two years before. And the Federalist 
leaders were paying as they deserved for any 
distrust they had ever felt of the People. The 
People was taking care of itself and was 
directing its own future quite unmindful of 
the intrigues or blunders or the successes at 
Washington. 

Who should be the President to follow poor 
Mr. Madison ? Why, Mr. Monroe was Secretary 
of State : let him be President. It is clear 
enough that nobody cared much. Certainly no- 
body was afraid of undue abilities in a man who 
had never shown any ability so far. And it is 
fan' to say that James Monroe drifted into the 
Presidency, drifted through office, and drifted 
out of the Presidency, while his great master, 



JAMES MONROE 221 

the American People, was carrying forward 
its own enterprises and doing its own busi- 
ness. 

One remembers, of course, whose name is 
given to the Monroe Doctrine. One remembers 
that in his dynasty we purchased Florida. In a 
separate chapter I will try to trace some of the 
more curious lines of the development of emigra- 
tion to the West, about which even then the 
self-styled leaders seem to have been curiously 
doul^tful. The President, as soon as he was 
President, the same man who " never was in 
trade and knew nothing about it," arrayed him- 
self to see the commercial States, and even to 
cross to the new-born West and show himself to 
the people who were creating a nation there. 
In my boyhood, this journey of his, which began 
on the 3 1st day of May, 1817, and did not end 
until October of the same year, was called " The 
President's Progress." Washington's similar 
journey in 1791 was always called "Washing- 
ton's Progress." There is a little touch of bur- 
lesque when one reads that President Monroe 
arrayed himself in the old buff and blue of the 
Revolution with an old-fashioned three-cornered 
soldier's hat. There is just a touch of absurdity 
about this, because his militar}^ exploits were, of 



222 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

his whole life, the enterprises which his friends 
would have most gladly forgotten.^ 

There is a good Harvard tradition which I 
may put in print without hurting anybody. At 
a meeting of the little college faculty in the year 
1817, it was announced that Blank, a spirited 
senior, must be "suspended." I suppose his 
marks were not high enough, or his attendance 
at chapel had been irregular. Dear, courteous, 
kindly Dr. Kirkland, who was the President, was 
supposed to he dozing in his chair as the march 
of college government went forward ; but at this 
proposal to suspend Blank he roused to life and 
activity. " Send a^vay Blank, when Mr. Monroe 
is coming ? Who will command my Harvard 

1 Burr hated Monroe from the time when he served with him 

in the Revolution. Burr says of his military career, in a letter 

of 1815, that Monroe " never commanded a platoon nor was 

ever fit to command one. He served in the Revolutionary war, 

that is, he acted a short time as aide de camp to Lord Sterling 

who was regularly 

******** 

Monroe's whole duty was to fill his Lordship's tankard, and to 
hear with indications of admiration his l^ordship's long stories 
about himself. Such is Monroe's military experience. I was 
with my regiment in the same division at the time. As a 
lawyer, Monroe was far below mediocrity. He never rose to 
the honour of trying a cause of the value of one hundred 
pounds." 

" This is a character exactly suited to the views of the 
Virginia junto." 



JAMES MONROE 223 

Washington Corps wlien the President visits the 
College ? " The Harvard Washington Corps 
was the military establishment of the college 
boys at that time. Dr. Kirkland could put his 
foot down when he chose. And so it chanced 
that Blank was retained in college and that the 
Harvard Washington Corps, which he com- 
manded, presented aruis at the proper time and 
in the proper way to the President of the United 
States. And so it happened that, fifty years 
after, Harvard University received a very im- 
portant and very expensive new building from 
an alumnus who on that day commanded the 
Harvard Washington Corps. 

If I could get history written as I should like 
to have it written, there would be a nice bronze 
put up in the doorway of that spacious hall, 
which would tell this story for the next hundred 
years. I observe that men spell the name with 
one more letter than they used in 1817. 

There is yet in the ink-l)ottle a good historical 
essay, not yet written, on students who have 
been exiled from college and those who have not. 
Fenimore Cooper, for instance, is not in the 
catalogue of Yale University, although he was 
a student there. 



224 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING^ 

This is the old-fashioned phrase, now gener- 
ally forgotten, which was introduced by some 
bright person in Monroe's time. 

The real English of the matter, as I under- 
stand it, is that the principle of " two terms " 
had been well introduced, and was considered as 
rather a matter of course. The Virginians were 
in the saddle ; they had been in the saddle since 
the beginning ; they had not much else to do 
than to administer the general government ; and, 
which is the most important point of all, there 
was not much general government to administer. 
There is a certain humor in what Burr said of 
the Virginia junto in 1815 : "To this junto you 
have twice sacrificed yourself and what have you 
got by it ? Their hatred and abhorrence. Did 
you ever know them to countenance a man of 
talents and independence ? Never nor ever will ! " 

That is to say that the Nation as a Nation 
was still hardly conscious of its own existence. 
The States' Rights doctrine was still the favorite 
doctrine of a great many theorists, who believed, 
as most people do believe, that all the world of 
any importance is within ten miles of their own 

^ Ascribed to Ben. Russell or liis wife in Appleton, — at the 
time of Moiu"oe's progress. See p. '22S. 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING 225 

meeting-house. Aud this theory of government 
lingered among the men who cared for govern- 
ment. But they were not many in proportion. 
The country w^as advancing, with the energy 
and dignity which I have tried to describe, on 
its own business. The New Englanders were 
weaving cotton and woollen by the power of their 
own waterfalls. Nobody seems to understand 
it to this day, but men really do like better to 
have the rain from heaven drive their looms and 
wheels than to have their wives work a treadle 
or make a wheel go round by a crank. The 
Virginians were selling their slaves to the South- 
west at a very high price, and the people of the 
South and West were selling their cotton and 
w^ool at very high prices. People were begin- 
ning to find out that there was a West, and 
such men as De Witt Clinton and others were 
insisting upon it that there should be highways 
to the West. What was there for the " General 
Government " to do ? It could fuss and fiddle 
about treaties which should permit om' bread- 
stuffs to go into the West India Islands. It 
could fuss and fiddle about some claims we had 
on the Governments of France and Spain for 
some ships which had been destroyed some 
years before ; but really there was very little 

VOL. I. Q 



226 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



National business, as we understand National 
business to-day. People suffered from a bad 
curreucy ; but they did not understand what 
advantage they would gain from a currency like 
ours to-day, in which a bill on an Arkansas bank 
is as good as a bill issued in the city of New 

York. Indeed, 
for one reason 
or another, the 
Nation did not 
assert itself 
much in the 



m 
management of 




the currency. 
The people at 
Washington 
could not make 



Governor De Witt Clinton. 
Engraved from the bust by A. B. Durand. 



up their minds 
whether they 
did or did not want to help in the business of 
highways across the Alleghany Mountains. 

There came about some rather curious illustra- 
tions of this comparative insignificance of the 
National Government, which are perhaps worth 
jotting down. When the yellow fever broke 
out in Philadelphia, as early as 1797, all the 
officers of Government retired from that city. 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING 227 

John Adams lived in Braintree, Mass.,^ for much 
of that time, and had his mail brought to him 
once or twice a week from Philadelphia ; and 
there are queer letters in the foreign correspond- 
ence which say, almost in so many words, that 
the business of the Government is suspended 
until the yellow fever shall be cured. 

It is rather interesting to say that Adams 
himself said when it began, " I have no appre- 
hension of danger." But he added, " the mem- 
bers of Congress will be more exposed than I 
shall be, and I hold myself intrusted with the 
care of their health — a precious deposit which 
I will preserve according to the best of my 
judgement with perfect integrity and with more 
caution than I would take for my own." This 
is in a letter to Wolcott of October, 1797. 

Mr. Henry Adams cites Joseph Hopkinson to 
say, in 1814, "The general Government would 
have dissolved into its original elements, its pow- 
ers would have returned to the States from which 
they were derived." If the English Government 
had not been absolutely determined on peace, if 
they had not crowded it down the throats of the 
American envoys, Mr. Madison would have gone 
home from Washington to his own house, and 

1 His part of the town is now called Qiiincy. 



228 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the different Ministers of War and the Navy 
would have gone to theirs, and the National 
Government would have stopped. 

Under such circumstances, when the year 1820 
came round, there was no great clamor for a 
change of administration. James Monroe had 
done no harm, if he had done no good ; he was 
as good a cipher as anybody else was ; and there 
was absolutely no organized opposition of any 
great importance to his election. When the 
time of the election came, and the electors gave 
theii- votes, it proved that he had all the electoral 
votes but one. This was the vote given by the 
sturdy old New Hampshire man whose name 
still exists in honor in another generation, — 
William Plumer. He said, when the electoral 
college met in New Hampshire, that there never 
had been but one President who had received a 
unanimous vote, and that he was not going to 
have another so chosen by his act, and he threw 
his vote, therefore, for John Quincy Adams. 

It was before this period, July 10, 1817, after 
Mr. Monroe had been in office three months, that 
a writer in the Columbia Centinel in Boston 
spoke of his election to the presidency as mark- 
ing an " era of good feeling." It was not a bad 
name, and it lingered in a fashion for a genera- 



THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING 229 

tion among the people who had nothing better 
to do than to talk politics. In tact, the real 
interest of the country did not turn, as I have 
tried to show, on the accidents of the presidential 
election. It would, however, be to the last de- 
gree absiu-d to suppose that because nothing 
*•' happened " in the line of political events 
wliich the Dryasdusts like to write down, noth- 
ing " transpired " in the eight years of Monroe's 
dynasty. The country began to gird itself up 
to the business of what was called internal im- 
provement, which meant the creation of better 
roads and of canals, which developed into the 
railroad system of to-day. The people who call 
themselves the historians do not care to write of 
such things ; but in truth the opening of a great 
canal has nnich more to do with the progress of 
the world than most of the battles which have 
been fought on the sea or on the land. More 
gunpowder is used in peace than in war. War 
so far arrests the advance of the world in the 
civilized arts that, though it uses in the killing 
of men such a quantity of gunpowder, it does 
not use so much as would have been used had 
the world been working together about its 
business. 



230 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

DISTANCE THEN AND DISTANCE NOW 

This will be the best place to say that almost 
all the readers of this generation read the history 
of the first fifty years of the Nation without any 
fit apprehension of what were practically the 
distances in those days. It seems impossible to 
make such readers understand how far apart the 
States were from each other, and how little peo- 
ple knew each other. Steamboats made the 
beginning of a change. Railroads carried it 
farther. And since the railroads came in, the 
telegraph and the telephone have done the 
rest. 

But even in 1814, seven years after the Cler- 
motit made her voyage up the Hudson, Gallatin 
and Clay at Ghent considered what men called 
the Northwest Territory as of little or no value. 
Yet it was the territory north of our Illinois, 
west of Lake Michigan. " You will have noth- 
ing to do but to take care of the Indians there." 
Until the first steamboat was launched upon the 
Ohio in 1811, the members of Congress from 
Kentucky would probably go to Washington by 
way of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.^ 
As late as 18U7 when Dr. Holley, an eminent 

1 See page 319, Chap. VII, Internal Improvement. 



DISTANCE THEN AND DISTANCE NOW 231 

Boston preacher, was returning to Boston from 
Lexington, Kentucky, he was coming by this 
route when he died at sea. 

I think that George Washington, if in writing 
he had said " my country " in any of the last 
years of his life, would have meant Virginia. 
If he had used these words in speaking of the 
Nation, he would have been careful to say that 
such was his intention. From this physical 
separation of States and cities, it grew up as a 
matter of course that the people at large knew 
little or perhaps knew nothing of the leading 
characters in distant States. People had to vote 
as they were directed by the handful of men who 
knew the political public characters at Wash- 
ington. 

It was, then, perfectly natural that the mem- 
bers of Congress should take upon themselves 
the duty which in the arrangements of to-day 
devolve on the great quadrennial conventions of 
the great political parties. And up to the elec- 
tion of Harrison in the autumn of 1840, they 
exercised a great deal of power in such matters. 
But even at that time the railroads and the 
steamboats had begun to make great conven- 
tions possible. In the exciting political canvass 
which swept old Tippecanoe into place, many 



232 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

great conventions were held. A convention of 
young men, as it was called, from all parts of 
the Nation was held in Baltimore. On this oc- 
casion, one of the delegates was killed, I think, 
by some accident. It was agreed in the conven- 
tion that every delegate shonld pay one dollar 
to a fund for his widow. It was thought that 
this would give to her twenty thousand dollars. 
And I know that, in fact, the Massachusetts 
delegates paid one thousand dollars into this 
fund. The occasion was the first test of the 
resources of the railroads in carrying large num- 
bers of people on special occasions. 

As early as May 21, 1832, a Democratic con- 
vention called nominally for the Democratic 
party had met in Baltimore. I think this was 
the first National convention. It was taken for 
granted that General Jackson would be chosen 
a second time. This first Baltimore convention 
named Mr. Van Buren as Vice-President. Two 
hundred and eighty-three persons voted. 

If the system of the choice of President by 
electors had not now gone hopelessly to pieces, 
we should avail ourselves of the railroad system 
by making the electors take the responsibility 
which in theory the Constitution imposes upon 
them. As it stands, each party elects, or affects 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 233 

to elect, its members for National nominating 
conventions ; but these conventions are not 
known to the Constitution, and hardly known 
to the law. Still, the irresponsible delegates 
chosen by them really elect the President and 
Vice-President, or try to. 

It would be better in theory, according to me, 
if each party made in each State the best can- 
vass it could for its " favorite son," without any 
National convention. Then when the election 
came, the voters of each party would express the 
wish of their State, and would choose its pro- 
portion of electors. Then you could have the 
electoral college really meet at some central 
city. They could ballot as often as they liked, 
meeting in one caucus, or two or three, till all 
men should know which of the different candi- 
dates had the largest support among the people. 
But this system could not grow up in the begin- 
ning, because there were no railroads, and prac- 
tically it cannot grow up now. 

THE MISSOURI QUESTION 

When you count thirty-two years from 1787, 
you come out to 1819. A generation of men has 
passed, and you have to do your work over 
again. By a struggle such as Congress had 



234 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

never known before, in which the North and 
South were divided against each other, what was 
called Mr. Clay's Compromise of 1820 prevailed 
after a year= Under that compromise, with 
always increasing difficulties, the Nation worked 
along for another generation, and then in 1853, 
in another generation, if you please, a few reck- 
less men, blindly confident in their own success, 
undertook to disown the measure of 1820, and 
tried to force slavery on the regions which had 
been exempt by Mr. Clay's plan ; and the dragon 
was waked up again. This time his head was 
cut off, and in that particular form the ques- 
tion was settled forever, after thirty-three more 
years. 

Of Mr. Monroe's so-called administration, and 
the interior politics of what is called the Cabinet, 
w^e have the most edifying and interesting ac- 
count in what is printed of the journal of John 
Quincy Adams. Mr. Monroe recalled Adams 
from England in 181G and made him Secretary 
of State. Now, the unwritten theory had held 
since Jefferson came in that the Secretary of 
State was a good available candidate for the 
Presidency. Jefferson himself had been Secre- 
tary of State, Madison had been Secretary of 
State, and Monroe had been Secretary of State. 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 235 

Naturally enough, the impression had been 
wrought into people's minds that the Secre- 
tary of State would succeed the President, other 
things being equal. I suppose Mr. Adams 
thouQ-ht so. But if he did think so he reckoned 




•It II I \ UriN( V A HA MS. 
After an engraviuj; fnuii the ptn'trait by A. 15. Diirand. 

without his host, for the Virginians and people 
who believed in politics as a trade had no such 
intentions. The business of the country, so far 
as it came into the Cabinet or these discussions, 
seems to have been quite secondary to the in- 
trigues of Mr. Adams's friends, and Mr. Cal- 



236 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



hoLin's friends, and Mr. Wirt's friends, and Mr. 
Crawford's friends, as to the succession. To us 
at this time what is most curious in the very in- 
teresting vohunes of Mr. Adams's Journal which 
have been published is to see how little, on the 

w^iole, any of them es- 
teemed the importance 
of the slavery question. 
Mr. Crawford withdrew 
from public life on ac- 
count of ill health. Mr. 
Adams and Mr. Calhoun 
lived to see that all 
things beside were not 
so important as this 
question which involved 
eternal principles. But 
of the history of the 
anti-slavery movement it 
will be more convenient to speak in another 
place. 

While I speak of Mr. Monroe himself as a 
person comparatively insignificant, I do not, of 
course, mean that those eight years from 1817 to 
1825 were in any sort insignificant. It is in 
these years that the curtain rises for those who 
study the great drama of the century. The 




William Harris Grawiokd. 

Engraved by S. H. Gimber from 

a painting by J. W. Darvis. 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 



237 



drama begins with the gray dawn, half twihght, 
through which joii dimly see a vague, distant 
prospect. The hero of the drama, the stripling 
nation, comes forward alone, doubtful and even 
timid. The world is out of joint, and can he set 
it right ? The curtain falls, at the end of the 
century, really on the first part of a trilogy. 
The stripling boy, loose-jointed, ignorant, and 
doubtful, appears then as 
the strong man, borrow- 
ing omnipotence for the 
duties God trusts to him, 
and still wondering what 
those duties are. 

One of the great ques- 
tions which the young 
stripling must decide is 
the question of freedom 
or slavery in the region 
west of the Mississippi. 
The battle royal comes 
on which was timidly 
pushed oft" in 1787, and which has been dreaded 
for thirty years, — a generation of men. It is 
not often that great questions are settled once 
for all ; generation after generation comes up to 
a new roimd in the battle. And so it was now. 




•John ('ald\\f.ll Calhoux. 
From a miniature by Blan- 
ch ard. 



238 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

The Constitution had in its way settled this 
question by what are called the " Compromises " 
of the Constitution. But after thirty-two years, 
with another generation of men on the stage, it 
insisted, as T have said, on being settled again. 
It returned under the title of the " Missouri Con- 
troversy." 

In the admission of the Gulf States of Ala- 
bama and Mississippi, they followed the law or 
custom of Georgia, to which, in some fashion, 
their territory had belonged. With the admis- 
sion of Kentucky and Tennessee, in the same 
way, it had been taken for granted, almost, that 
they would be slave States because they were 
settled from Virginia and North Carolina. On 
the other hand, for the States nortli of the Ohio, 
the admirable forecast of the " Northwest Ordi- 
nance," 1787, so called, had forever exempted 
them from the institution of slavery. With 
more or less questioning as to the permanency 
of the provision of " the Ordinance," as we still 
call it, Indiana was admitted to the Union in 
1816, and Illinois in 1818. So far, so good. 
After serious controversy, all the States east of 
the Mississippi River, and the State of Louisiana, 
made out of the French population at the mouth 
of the river, took their status in advance regard- 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 239 

iug the institution of slaveiy. It was not until 
one State west of the Mississippi, made from the 
Louisiana Purchase, was ready for admission 
that the question as to its future status in this 
matter could come to a critical contest. That 
State, as it proved, was Missouri. 

In 1803 and 1804, when we had just bought 
Louisiana from Napoleon, it was taken for 
granted that we should not send emigrants 
across the river for a hundred years. That 
was Livingston's opinion, as it has been cited 
already in these pages. ^ One must not wonder, 
therefore, that little or nothing; was said, even 
in the bitter debates on the Louisiana Purchase, 
as to the existence of slavery in territory so far 
away, and so sure to remain in barbarism. But 
there was already a French post at St. Louis, 
and one or two garrisons farther down the river, 
on its western shore. As fifteen years went on, 
this post at St. Louis became more and more 
populous. It was the depot of the fur trade of 
the West. Without questions on any part, its 
people followed the habit of the original settlers, 
and bought negroes for slaves where they chose 
and where they could. In 1820 there were not 
five thousand inhabitants in St. Louis. Around 

1 See p. 33. 



240 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

it, however, tlie uatural resources of the country 
had called in settlers in large numbers, and a 
population of sixty-six thousand people, of whom 
ten tliousand were slaves, had already collected 
itself in this region, where Livingston had told 
Europe, seventeen years before, that we should 
not send an emigrant. Those of these new 
settlers who were white and who owned slaves 
had taken them there without scruple, perhaps 
without hesitation. In tlieir application to be 
made a State, they took it for granted, or 
affected to, that their right to their slaves 
would be recognized. 

It was at this point that the contest came. 
The whole institution of slavery was on a dif- 
ferent basis from what it had been when Jeffer- 
son came to the Presidency. At that time he 
and Madison and the leaders of Virginia were 
discussing, in an academical way, the best 
methods of bringing the w^asteful system of 
slave labor to an end. At the same time, the 
exclusion, in the year 1808, of African slaves 
by a Constitutional prohibition gave an artificial 
value in money to the negroes born from slaves 
already existing in the country. I suppose that 
if, in 1803, a vigorous effort had been made to 
exclude slavery from the territory bought from 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 241 

Napoleon, such a measure would have had the 
assent of the States of Delaware, Maryland, and 
Virginia. But as early as 1819 it was quite 
impossible to secure any such assent. Southern 
men were beginning to look at slavery in a 
much more favorable light than that in which 
the wisest of their fathers generally regarded 
it. And so it was that the proposal that the 
State of Missouri should exclude slavery for the 
future failed to receive the assent of any South- 
ern State. 

So soon as the bill for the admission of Mis- 
souri was introduced into the House, it was 
amended so as to prohibit the introduction of 
slavery, and to declare free, at the age of 
twenty-one, all negro children who had been 
born in the Territory. This amendment passed 
the House. 

But, as we all know, it is easier to legislate 
for the future than for the past. In hard fact, 
there were already ten thousand negro slaves in 
Missouri. There were fifty thousand whites. 
To take care of the future of people yet un- 
born would be one thino;. To chauQ-e the status 
of ever}' black person who should come to the 
age of twenty-one was quite another. This for 
matter of detail. Then, as a matter of prin- 



242 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ciple, it is easy to see that the Southern leaders 
did not mean to cut oft' the right of emigration 
■ from Eastern States to Western territory with 
the slaves who were their property. And when 
the bill, as amended, went to the Senate, it was 
rejected by a vote of twenty-two to sixteen. 
The bill went back to the House, and failed by 
the disagreement of tlie House. 

Tlie subject was brought up again at the next 
session. The North was at a disadvantage, for 
here were already ten thousand slaves in the 
new State. The debates would seem to show 
that the whole question of " State Rights " was 
more considered than the al^stract question of 
the right or wrong of holding men as slaves. 
Even Calhoun granted that Congress could pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territories ; but on " State 
Rights " ground he insisted that no act of ad- 
mission passed by Congress could limit the 
power of a State after it had changed from a 
V Territory to a State. 

The second time there came a deadlock be- 
tween the Senate and the House. The Sen- 
ate, as before, amended the bill by striking out 
the anti-slavery proviso. The House, as before, 
disagreed to the Senate amendment. 

To obtain some '' method of living," a Senator 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 



243 



from the Northwest proposed a new section to 
the bill. This was what we know as the " Mis- 
souri Comproniise." For this one time a slave 
State was to be received north of the line of 
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, the south- 
ern line of Missouri, and with the proviso that 
the same should not 
be allowed again. 
This proposal, which 
passed the Senate, 
was once rejected by 
the House ; but, under 
tlie influence of Mr. 
Cla}^, who was Speaker 
of the House, it finally 
obtained just enough 
votes for its passage. 
Missouri was admit- 
ted on the 10th of 

August, 1821, with a constitution authorizing 
slavery on condition that no other slave States 
should be admitted north of the southern line 
of Missouri. At that time there were twenty- 
two States. Eleven were free and eleven slave. 
The vote in the Senate, therefore, was equally 
divided between North and South. But the 
greater population of the Northern States gave 




Henry Clay as a Young Man. 



244 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

that section a majority of twenty-five in the 
House. The amended bill, when it first came 
from the Senate, was rejected in the House by 
a vote of 159 to 18. But after a vote of the 
Committee on Conference, every Southern Rep- 
resentative voted in the affirmative ; and the 
votes of fourteen Northern members were obtained 
for the " Compromise " with great difficulty, and 
for many varied reasons, different, perhaps, with 
every vote from those given for every other. 

The contract thus made between the North 
and South was an agreement, broken in 1854, 
when the Southern leaders, really crazy with their 
success, proposed to repeal the anti-slavery pro- 
vision in establishing the Territory, as it was 
called, of Nebraska, west of the State of Missouri. 

At the moment when the " Compromise " 
passed Congress the feeling of the North 
touching anti-slavery matters for the future had 
been more distinctly announced than it had ever 
been before. In December, 1819, there was a 
great popular meeting held in the Doric Hall of 
the State House in Massachusetts, under the 
lead of Daniel ^yebster, who made a strong 
speech insisting upon the duty of the North to 
reject all proposals which could enslave the 
States made west of the Mississippi. 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION 245 

The substance of that speech is in the address 
which that meeting sent out to the people of 
Massachusetts. And it is one of the infamous 
suppressions of history that in George Ticknor 
Curtis's life of Mr. Webster all allusion to this 
address is omitted, — undoubtedly intentionally 
omitted. 

What was called the " Compromise " did not 
for a moment suppress the feeling of protest. I 
have heard it said, and believe it to be true, that 
hardly one of the fourteen Northern men whose 
votes were given for it was ever returned to 
Congress. I know that the two or three New 
England men who voted for it came home to 
find themselves very coldly treated by their con- 
stituents. All the same, however, Missouri was 
admitted into the United States, the more read- 
ily because of the district of Maine. This had 
always been a part of Massachusetts, had been al- 
ready admitted on the loth of March, 1820. This 
gave the North two more senators and was 
scored as so far a Northern victory. The men 
who wanted to push the slavery question off 
could say and did say that Missouri and Maine 
were, so to speak, paired against each other. So 
much precedent was there given to a sort of 
general understanding that if you admitted a 



246 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Northern State, yon must admit a Southern 
State. And people would tell you that Michigan 
and Iowa were paired against Florida and Ar- 
kansas. This did not mean that in either case 
two States were admitted by the same bill ; but 
it meant that the opposition to the admission of 
Southern States was to a certain extent lulled 
because equal strength was added or could be 
added on the Northern side. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

James Monroe now lives in history because, 
fortunately for him, his name is attached to the 
Monroe Doctrine. In 1823 George Canning 
made the suggestion of something of the same 
sort to Mr. Rush, who was our Minister in 
London. 

I think that the earliest memorandum on 
paper of the project is in John Quincy Adams's 
letter to Mr. Rush of the 2d of July, 1823. 
'' A necessary consequence [of the independence 
of the South American States] will be that the 
American Continent will be no longer subject to 
colonization." Canning's conversation with Mr. 
Rush took place in the next month. He pro- 
poses a joint declaration of England and the 
United States that they would not view with 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 



•247 



indifference any foreign intervention in America. 
That conversation, when reported at Washing- 
ton, called the attention of the President to the 




George Cannino. 

From ;i sketoh made in the House of Commons, March, 182(i. 

matter, and Monroe asked the opinion of Madi- 
son and Jefferson, who were both retired from 
office. Jefferson in reply said squarely, " Our 
second maxim should be, never to suffer Europe 
to intermeddle with cis- Atlantic affairs." Mr. 



248 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Madison, referring to some threats on the part of 
the Holy Alliance, said that " they call for our 
efforts to defeat the meditated crusade." The 
President's message is dated the 2d of December 
in that year. It contains the celebrated pas- 
sage, " We owe it to candor ... to declare that 
we should consider any attempt on the part of 
the allied powers to extend their system to any 
portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our 
peace and safety." So far the " Holy Alliance " 
is alluded to. And this statement goes no far- 
ther, but the message goes on to say, " We could 
not view any interposition for the purpose of 
oppressing [the South American States] or con- 
trolling, in any manner, their destiny by any 
European power, in any other light than as a 
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward 
the United States." 

The next year he says : " It is gratifying to 
know that some of the powers with whom we 
enjoy a very friendly intercourse and to whom 
these views have been communicated have ap- 
peared to acquiesce in them." 

William Plumer in his biography says that 
the President told Adams that he had doubts 
about that part of the message of 1823 which 
related to the interference of the Holy Alliance 



PERSONAL AND GENEALOGICAL 249 

with Spanish America. He said he believed it 
had better be omitted, and asked him if lie did 
not think so too. Adams rei)lied : " You have 
my sentiments on the subject ah^eady, and I see 
no reason to alter them." " Well,"' said the 
President, " it is written, and 1 will not change 
it now." This was a day or two before Congress 
met. 

It seems probable that John Quincy Adams 
drew the passage which has given Mr. Monroe, 
fairly enough, the honor of naming the proviso. 

PERSONAL AND GENEALOGICAL 

The reader of these pages will have to follow 
a good many memoranda in the Everett hand- 
writing ; and it will save footnotes or other ex- 
planations if once for all I account here for my 
own middle name of Everett. It will be enough 
to say that in the first generation of Massachu- 
setts Bay as early as 1636 appears Richard Ever- 
ett. It is supposed that he first settled in Water- 
town, Massachusetts. But in 1638 he is called 
" Richard Evered of Dedham in New England, 
Pharier." I suppose this means farrier. He seems 
to have been respected in the town. He died July 
3, 1682. In 1667 the town paid to him twenty 
shillings as its bounty for killing two wolves. The 



250 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

descent struggles along, always in the Everett 
name, through the regular eiglit generations, the 
most prominent person in it being a commander 
of the train-bands who was frequently on perma- 
nent duty in New Hampshire and Maine. ^ I 
think he was somewhere in that region at the 
time of Lovell's fight. From this blood there 
appears in South Dedham, otherwise called Tiot, 
now known as Norwood, Ebenezer Everett, 
whose house was standing there a few years ago. 
He had had the courage and good sense to go 
over to Andover and marry Joanna Stevens, of the 
Andover Stevens blood. Of their children, Moses 
Everett and Oliver Everett were sent to Harvard 
College. Oliver Everett graduated there in 1772. 
The first time I was ever at a formal dinner- 
party, being a rather frightened young man of 
twenty, I met dear old Dr. John Pierce, who 
called himself in joke the Catalogarius of Har- 
vard College. He spoke to me across the table, 
breaking up the other conversation to say, " Mr. 
Hale, your grandfather, Oliver Everett, was born 
in 1752, graduated in 1772, took charge of the 
New South Church in 1782, left that Church in 
1792, died in 1802 ; you were born in 1822, and 

1 A good guess supposes that Everett was originally the 
Dutch name Evaert or Evarts. 



PERSONAL AND GENEALOGICAL 251 

will take your second degree in 1842." It was 
one of the instances, almost absurd, of the curi- 
ous accuracy of his menioiy" in any detail which 
related to college history. To me it has been a 
very convenient memorandum. It is a little hard 
for us to connect the statistics of our personal life 
with the chronology in books. I once had, as a 
piece of hack duty, to write the life of Wolfgang 
von Goethe in tlie same summer in which I wrote 
the life of my great-uncle, Nathan Hale. I con- 
fess I was a good deal surprised when I found 
that Goethe, whose death I remember, was born 
five years before Nathan Hale, who was killed 
by General Howe in the autumn of 1776. 

Both my grandfathers were l)orn in the last 
half of the eighteenth century, Enoch Hale in 
1754, Oliver Everett two years earlier. For ten 
3'ears he was minister of the New South Church 
in Boston, where he was a predecessor of Kirk- 
land, who went from that pulpit to be President 
of Harvard College. His second son was Alex- 
ander Hill Everett, with whom this reader will 
have a good deal to do. His third son was 
Edward Everett, whose name I bear. His sec- 
ond daughter was Sarah Preston Everett, who 
was my mother. Oliver Everett's health failed 
him so far that he could not carrv on the duties 



252 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 




of a large Boston parish. His brother Moses 
Everett was a minister in Dorchester, now a 

part of the municipahty 
of Boston. 

I suppose this was 
the reason why Oliver 
Everett, when he retired 
from his ministry in 
Boston, bought a house, 
which was ]3ulled down 
only a year ago, which 
stood on what is known 
as Edward Everett square 
in Dorchester. In this 
house my mother was 
born, on a day ever to be marked with red 
in the history of my own family — the 5th of 
September, 1796. 

I was sorry enough when the supposed exi- 
gencies of modern life made it necessary to pull 
down this building, which really belonged to what 
are called the colonial days.^ I suppose it to 

1 Purists say " provincial days " when they speak of the period 
after Massachusetts was a " province " until the 19th of April, 
1775. But we people in the Bay, who are in fact a little pro- 
vincial, do not like to be called provincial, so we speak of a 
" colonial " house, even of a house built in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the century of " The Province." 



Alexander Hill Everett. 
From an early miniature. 



PERSONAL AND GENEALOGICAL 253 

have been built by one of the West Indian 
})hinters who used to like to come up from 
the islands to live for the summer in Boston or 
its neighborhood. Jamaica Plain is named for 
such people. Some of them had the wit to plant 
p]nglish walnuts at the Dorchester house which 
throve and bore fruit, as, for some reason, Eng- 
lish walnuts do not seem to do when they are 
planted in New England now. My mother her- 
self planted a honeysuckle there before the year 
180G; and for the convenience of gardeners I 
may say that this plant was alive in the year 
3 805. The stem was at that time three or four 
inches through. In this house my grandfather 
died in the year 1802, when his sons were but 
boys, leaving my grandmother to bring up a 
family of eight children. Two of those children, 
Alexander Hill Everett and Edward Everett, 
lived to hold distinguished positions in the ad- 
ministration of the State of Massachusetts or of 
the Nation. John Everett, his fourth son, who 
came next after my mother in the family, had 
a very brilliant career in college, and died at the 
age of twenty-eight. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
who was in college with him, often spoke to me 
of his remarkable ability and promise. 

In what now seems to me rather a lielter- 



254 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

skelter way, ray raother grew up in this wid- 
ow's household, her father having died when 
she was six years old. In after life she almost 
worshipped the two Jorothers, Alexander and Ed- 
ward, who from her earliest recollections had in- 
terested themselves in her education. So little 
had schools to do with this education that I can- 
not at this moment name any of her school- 
teachers. But her brother Alexander went to 
St. Petersburg in 1809 ; and in his first letter 
to her he proposes that this girl of thirteen 
shall write to him in Frencli, and this she seems 
to have done. 

Her brother Edward went to Germany in 
1815, and either then or before she mastered 
the German language, and I cannot remember 
the time when she did not read it with ease. 
This is now a common accomplishment, but as 
late as 1830 she could not buy a German book 
in Boston.^ The duties of life under rather 
struggling pecuniary circumstances in a vil- 
lag:e like Dorchester gave her a sort of house- 
hold training such as is harder for a young 
woman to have in our days. As early as 

^ In 1813 I tried in Philadelphia to buy some German books 
for her. But I could find only Goethe, Schiller, tlie German 
Bible, and the German hymn book. 



PERSONAL AND GENEALOGICAL 255 

1807 she eujoyed, as a girl would enjoy, the 
friendship and advice of Joseph Stevens Buck- 
minster, who was the minister of Brattle Street 
Church. Thus she gained on Sundays the ini- 




The Everett House at Dorchester. 

mense advantage of his emancipation from the 
mechanical religion of the preceding century. 
Such training as this for a girl who had thor- 
oughly sound health and a temper of great 
sweetness and even balance made an all-round 
woman, a little of the Die Vernon type if 



256 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

you please, of whom there were not many in 
New England in the first twenty years of the 
century. Such a girl twelve years of age was in 
the home to which Alexander Hill Everett took 
his Exeter friend Hale on their first vacation 
visit to Boston. One of the traditions of the 
family is that when her brother and his friend 
for the first time cut off the queues which had 
adorned their young heads until then, they gave 
them to her to make hair for her doll. Another 
similar tradition of about the same time is that 
when they came home from a Phi Beta dinner 
at Cambridge they gave her for the millinery 
of the baby house the pink and blue ribbons 
from their Phi Beta medals. But girls of 
twelve grow up to be women of twenty, and 
sometimes they marry their brothers' nearest 
friends. My mother married one dear friend 
of one dear brother the day she was twenty 
years old, which, as I have already said, is a 
day to be marked with vermilion by me and 
mine. 

From this marriage began a happy life for 
her and her husband, Avith every range of ex- 
perience and fortune, of which these pages need 
say nothing more but what relates to the more 
public affairs of the century. 



1808 TO 1840 



CHAPTPTR VI 



1808 TO 1840 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATER 

I TURN for a few pages from America to 
Europe. I have a series of letters between 
John Quincy Adams and Mr. Alexander Everett 
for fifteen years 
after the War 
of 1812. Mr. 
Everett had gone 
to Russia with 
Mr. Adams in 
1808 as his pri- 
vate secretary. ^- 
He was with him p 
there throiig-h 
that most inter- 
estins; and criti- 
cal period when 
the Emperor of 
Russia stood so loyally to his engagements with 
America and to tlie traditions of Catherine and 

259 




li.MFH.Koli Al,KXA.M>Klv 1. 

From an engraving by Montaut. 



260 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

other neutral powers. Because the Emperor 
would not agree in any form to Napoleon's 
Berlin and Milan decrees, Napoleon quarrelled 
with hiin and invaded his empire, 

I must not go into this. The reader will find 
it all explained and illustrated by Mr. Henry 
Adams. I only wish here to say that an inti- 
macy began between John Quincy Adams — a 
veteran statesman, as far as American diplomacy 
went — and Alexander Everett as early as 1806, 
when Mr. Everett left Exeter and began the 
study of law in Mr. Adams's office. That friend- 
ship continued unbroken while Mr. Adams lived. 
From the correspondence which grew from it I 
shall make a few extracts. The reader will see 
that their statements of fact are of the first 
authority. And I copy a few of such details 
as explain the delay of letters and the slowness 
of travel to show how different the external con- 
ditions were from those of our days. 

The reader will observe that it was but a few 
years since the Weekly Messenger had begun a 
new series, under my father's sole direction. It 
was but two years since he had purchased the 
Boston Daily Advertiser newspaper, the first 
daily paper in New England. Our old-fashioned 
people call the paper The Daily still. My mother 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATER 261 

used to laugh about her indignation when, on 
her wedding tour, the Advertiser or the Messen- 
ger had followed them, and she found that the 
friendly compositors at the printing-office had 
printed the names of In-ide and bridegroom in 
letters unusually large, under the head of " Mar- 
riages." I suppose no compositor or proof-reader 
in the office of the Tribune or the Journal now 
would take any such liberty, even if he happened 
to know the name of his chief. But to a certain 
extent those Avere still feudal days. From the 
beginning of the Adver^tiser down, the editor 
owned the printing plant, or owned enough of it 
to control its use. And in such days the count- 
ing-room direction and the editorial wish were 
one and tlie same, because both came from one 
and the same man. 

I must take for granted what we will hope is 
true — that all readers are well informed as to 
the great crisis which culminated in the triumph 
of neutral rights and the fall of Napoleon. So I 
will venture to suppose that they would prefer 
not to read of those half-forgotten politics. And 
instead of them, for the moment they may forget 
wars and rumors of wars and look in on Cole- 
ridge as he lectures on " Love." 

In ISll Mr. Everett left St. Petersburg on 



262 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



leave of absence and visited England. The fol- 
lowing passage gives a description of one even- 
ing in London as late as 1849. Mr. Ralph 
Waldo Emerson told me that when his friends 
were arranging for his lectures in London in 
1848, they went back to the traditions of these 
lectures by Coleridge : — 

"London, 1811. 

" I dined to-day at the Globe in company with 
Mr. Amory. In the evening Frank Williams 

called in and we 
went together to 
Coleridge's Lecture. 
It was on the inter- 
esting subject of love 
and the French char- 
acter as delineated by 
Shakespeare. Love 
he detined to us 
' the perfect desire of 
being united to some- 
thing that we feel to 
be necessary to our 
happiness by all the 
means that Nature permits and Reason allows.' 
I think he does not shine in Definitions. I 
understand that at a recent lecture which I did 




Samuel Taylok Coleridge. 
From an enarravinsr of 1809. 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATER 2G.S 

not hear he defined a poem to l)e the natnral 
expression of a natnral thought. lie wished, 
he said, to take a middle course in his idea of 
Love between the higli Platonists, that excludes 
the idea of body, and the gross materialists that 
have no conception of anything further. Scott's 
description went very much to this point : — 

" ' True Love's the gift tliat God has given 
To ]\lan alone beneath tlie Heaven. 
It is not Fantasy's hot tire 
Whose wishes soon as granted fly. 
It liveth not in vvikl desire, 
In dead desire it doth not die. 
It is the secret sympathy, 
The silver cord, the silken tie. 
That heart to heart and mind to mind 
In body and in soul doth bind.' 

" He took up the play of Romeo and Juliet, 
dividing the characters into the general and in- 
dividual ones, the former as Tybalt and Capulet, 
the great characters of the play. Mercutio he 
commended very mucli. It had been objected, 
he said, that Shakespeare had despatched Mer- 
cutio in the third act because he was unable to 
support him an}' longer. The fact was that he 
had given him the brilliancy which he dispWs 
while on the stage in order to excite an interest 
in the death and thus give an air of natiu-e to 



264 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the spirit of revenge it creates in Romeo, by 
which means the death of Tybalt and the catas- 
trophe of the play that hangs upon it are ren- 
dered probable. He advanced something in favor 
of the conceits of Shakespeare. He undertook 
to consider the Nurse, which seems to be a very 
favorite character with him, for his admiration 
was without bounds, and appeared so to have 
bewildered his head that he could not descend 
to particulars so as to make the grounds of it 
intellio;ible. The attractive nature of the sub- 
ject had brought together a larger audience than 
usual, and the ladies all concurred in saying that 
it was very pretty. They appeared to be disap- 
pointed when he finished." 

CHILD LIFE m BOSTON 

Do not let any one think that I am going 
to harass my readers with many details as to 
my personal life. What we are trying for is a 
keyhole view of the whole century ; and when I 
speak of myself, it is simply because the reader 
and I, as I keep saying, are looking through 
the same keyhole. Still, it will be convenient 
to all parties if I say that it was in the twenties 
that I began to see matters with my own eyes. 
On the od of April, 1822, 1 came into this world. 



CHILD LIFE IN BOSTON 265 

There is a well-kuowu reminiscence of a French 
physicist who remembered seeing the nm^se raise 
the curtain of his room when he was six hours 
old. I do not go back so far as he, and I do not 
believe that I recall anything of my own observa- 
tions earlier than my sight of the green feathers of 
the Rifle Rangers on the ITtli of June, 1825, of 
which I have spoken already. A good deal had 
happened to me before then, however, which I 
cannot recall. Tluis, I could read the printed 
bado;e which was o;iven me. But I have no 
recollection of learning to read ; not even of 
who taught me. I suppose it was Miss Susan 
Whitney, to whose school I was sent, at my own 
eager request, before I was three years old. 

This admirable lady tried to teach the children 
of the next generation then- letters. 

And here I may as well illustrate the scenery 
and the other arrangements of the stage in Bos- 
ton in the twenties by telling how " we fom* " 
went to school and how we returned. To the 
company of readers of these lines who live within 
a mile or two of the cheerful gaslight by which 
they are written, the locality and the line of 
march will be sufficiently clear when I say that 
I was born in a house of which the front door 
opened where the Ladies' Entrance of Parker's 



266 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



Hotel opens to-day — near School Street in 
Tremont Street. From this front door, Fullum, 
who has been spoken of before, took us to school 
twice a day, excepting Thursdays and Saturdays, 

when we went but 
once. " Us " means 
that he took " us 
four " — my two 
sisters, my brother, 
and me. The other 
three were my play- 
mates ; they were 
older than I ; and 
when they went to 
school daily, I used, 
naturally enough, 
to cry and beg to 
go with them. Ah 
me ! since that time 
I have known many 
another hapless 
child who has stumbled into the like pitfall. 
Miss Susan Whitney did not hesitate to receive 
me. I suppose I was one of the youngest of her 
flock. She attended to her part of the business 
well. I suppose I had learned my letters at 
home. I have no recollection of anything in the 




Abel Fullum. 
Drawn by Ellen D. Hale. 



CHILD LIFE IX BOSTON 267 

process. I cannot recollect any moment of my 
life when I could not read as well as I can now. 

I may sa}', in passing, that Sequoyah, the Chero- 
kee Cadmus, taught a boy to read in a day, and 
speaks as if two or three days were always quite 
sufficient for the business. Helen Keller, who 
was certainly badly handicapped, learned to read 
and write and spell in less than four months ; 
and has never, I think, made a mistake in spell- 
ing in twelve years since. The truth seems to 
be that we generally make a great deal too much 
fuss about learning to read. 

What I remember is this : that the school- 
room was one of two chambers on the first floor 
of a pre-Revolutionary liouse in a little private 
courtyard next west of the Trinity Church of 
those days. The room was perhaps fifteen feet 
square, with a sanded floor, and with benches 
and chah's enough for twenty scholars or more. 
It was warmed by an open wood fire in the win- 
ter. We had slates and pencils and the " New 
York Primer " and Barbauld's " Early Lessons." 

It seems to me a rather cmious index of the 
times that, as I suppose, there was no other 
primer in Boston since the " New" England 
Primer," which was then wholly antiquated. I 
had some highly philosophical child's books, not 



268 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

either of these primers, which I cannot now find. 
I wish any one would tell me when and where it 
was arranged. Some such book which I had gave 
me a picture or conspectus of the five vowels, 




n, e<,puai Lcti.n. afffiffiflfflfiifffiffiflftlkQ) 



llatii UtttT 



A B GX) t: F Cx H I 

C'T*iri\;\A/-i,^rr r-lHh li Jj Kk LI Mm Nn 

STU V WX Y ZiOop/^q Rr S/sTt Uu 

Vv Ww Xx Ty Zs iff 

• The inait Ltiltri. 1 ^___,«, 



^ a c a e I g ii^fjijif^jhf/tfijijijijb 
ijklmnoi^ ^^Tn^y 
q r f s t u V z;~ 

Q bed tg li j k Ini nfw^rf stvwxz 

w X y z & 

;^;^^ii/C2pcQDc©pcfij ^ a CE ce 



J0^ 



The New England Fkimek. 
From the collection of W. G. Bowdoin, Esq. 

each leading his own platoon in the little army. 
A and E each had three followers. I, 0, and U, 
the other three captains, each had five. Now 
whoever always sees his letters arranged in this 
order in his mind's cabinet has many great 
advantages over those who do not — advantages 
which it is not necessary here to describe. 



CHILD LIFE IN BOSTON 2G9 

Let US return to Fullum and his little flock of 
four, of the united ages, as the newspapers say, of 
twenty-three years. Nathan and Sarah, aged 
eight and seven, could have gone to school alone. 
1)ut could hardly have taken care of me and my 
other sister at the ages of three and five. We 
were to go down School Street — then a paved 
lane without any regular curbstone or sidewalk 
— to turn to our rio-ht and q:o throug-h the " Main 
Street," not yet familiarly called Washington 
Street. When we came to Sumner's crockery- 
shop, tlien at the corner of Summer Street, with 
its fascinating shepherdesses and lambs in the 
window, we would stop a moment to admire 
them, and then, to make up for the lost time, 
would hurry down to the courtyard which led in 
to Miss Whitney's door. There Fullum took us 
upstairs and left us in the northern room ; the 
southern room was occupied by another school 
under the care of Miss x\yres. There was a 
vague impression that their scholarship was more 
advanced than ours. For all that, however, we 
had the serene and proper childish confidence 
that ours was the best school in the world, and 
that we, as individuals, probably had no superiors. 
The only blemish on this bright mirror of self- 
consciousness was the fact that Miss Ayres had a 



270 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

watch, aud that in our estabhshmeiit we had none. 
So we had to send in to her if we needed to know 
the time. 

At twelve o'clock Fullum came for us and we 
went home. At three in the afternoon we went 
through the same streets again, and at five 
went back again. Joy for us when winter came ! 
For the purposes of winter, Fullum had contrived 
a box sled, which was painted green. Into this 
box sled all four were packed, and thus we en- 
joyed, on the snow, four triumphant sleigh-rides 
daily, dragged by om- faithful friend. How 
many policemen would there need to l)e to escort 
such a company through that part of Washing- 
ton Street to-day ? 

Opposite the block of houses of which ours was 
one were three large gardens running up to the 
western side of the western block of Tremont 
Place of to-day. These estates were bought by 
the syndicate which built the Tremont House and 
opened Tremont Place. For the Tremont House 
the old houses were taken away and their 
orchards were cut down. The corner-stone of 
the Tremont House was laid in 1828. It was 
matter of surprise and of common conversation 
that here was to be a large hotel which had 
no stable of its own, though larger than the 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 



271 



Indian's Head in the neigliborliood. Observe 
that for years afterward horses and oxen gave 
the only motive power on the roads. 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 

In the year 1830 I saw General Jackson, who 
had come to Boston as President. In a State 
which had voted 
stiffly against him, 
the '^ Progress " was 
watched with great 
interest. Since that 
time I have spoken 
with Jolm Quincy 
Adams, with Tyler, 
Polk, Lincoln, Grant, 
Garfield I think, Ar- 
thur, Hayes, Benjamin 
Harrison, McKinley, 
and Eoosevelt. I have 
seen all the Presidents 
since Monroe. From Washington to Monroe, I 
never saw any of the five. 

It was on the third day of November in 1828 
that T. wlio was then six years old, w^as led by 
the liand of Fullnm as we four of iis children 
returned, after dark, from a tea-party at Katha- 




Gexeral Andrew Jackso.v. 
From a rare print by F. Cardon. 



272 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



rine Foster's in Avon Place. It was the night 
following the day when Massachusetts had 
given her vote for J. Q. Adams in 1828. As 
Fiilluin half dragged me and half lifted me 
across the " Main Street," a man's voice broke 




illK ilEHMITAGE. 



the silence of the evening by the cry, " Hm-rah 
for Jackson ! " I think that such cries were 
then very unusual. I doubt whether the New 
Englanders were in the habit of expressing 
themselves in such ways. A counter cry from 
another direction immediately replied, " Hurrah 
for Adams!" But, alas! a third voice, evi- 
dently from a new interlocutor, replied at once 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 273 

with a second " Hurrah for Jackson ! " I was 
but a child, but in one matter I saw the future 
of seventy years as well as I now see it in retro- 
spect. Impossible not to observe that two men 
hurrahed for Jackson and only one for Adams ! 
Impossible not to reflect that in the street 
neither my father, nor my uncles, nor any of 
the gentlemen whom I was used to see, would 
have hurrahed for anybody. And, at the same 
time, how clear, even to a child's observation, 
that there were many more men in the world of 
the kind who like to hurrah in the street than 
of the kind who do not like to ! All that we 
children understood of the business was that 
General Jackson once hanged six militia-men, 
and that his election would be ruin for the 
coimtry. Observe also that this was at the close 
of an election day in which Adams had four votes 
in Massachusetts for one given for Jackson. 

I believe this story about " Hurrah for Jack- 
son ! " is w^orth the precious three hundred words 
which it has cost, because it marks almost to a 
minute the period when the United States be- 
came a real democracy. It is as good a text as 
I shall have for saving a few words on the 
political change between the first third of the 
century and the last two-thirds. 

VOL. I. T 



274 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

The men who made the State constitutions 
and the United States Constitution had no idea 
of the universal suffrage with which we are 
familiar. Massachusetts was as far advanced 
in such matters as any of the States, but Massa- 
chusetts had begun with confiding the suffrage 
to church members, and they were only admitted 
to vote by the consent of a majority of those 
already voters. In 1780, in the State constitu- 
tion of which John Adams is the real author, 
Massachusetts gave the suffrage to landowners, 
or to persons with an amount of property on 
wliicli they paid taxes. 

By the National Act of 1798, no foreign emi- 
grant could be received to suffrage on less than 
fourteen years' probation, and this after five 
years' previous declaration of intention to be- 
come a citizen. 

One can see how effective were the limitations 
by the small number of votes as compared with 
the whole population. It was like a vote in 
Mississippi to-day, where six thousand voters 
choose the Congressman of two hundred thou- 
sand people. 

What followed on tliis limitation of suffraoje 
was that the two great parties were simply two 
rival aristocracies, There is something ludicrous 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 275 

now in reading the private letters of the real 
leaders on both sides. They take it as entirely 
for granted each that the party will do what 
half a dozen leaders determine on ; as Mr. 
Croker (in 1900) took it for granted that Tam- 
many would do what he determined on. Indeed, 
there was no popular convention or any other 
method by which the rank and file of the voters 
could express any opinion, even if they had one. 
But, practically, they had none. The condition 
of affairs in South Carolina up to Mr. Tillman's 
reign is a good enough illustration of the way in 
which every State was managed up till 1829. 
" Some of us get together at Columbia after the 
Commencement and arrange the politics of the 
State for the next year." Sach was the con- 
venient fashion everywhere in which things were 
managed all along the line, before people found 
out what universal suffrage means or what 
democratic government is. 

It seems to me one of the most curious bits of 
political sagacity in our history that, as early as 
1815, Aaron Burr suggested the name of An- 
drew Jackson as the best candidate for the suc- 
cession to James Madison. 

Aaron Burr hated and despised Monroe as he 
had ever since they quarrelled in the Revolution. 



276 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

And so Burr, looking with the dispassionate eye 
of one who wished for the faihn^e of both of the 
regular candidates, writes : — 

" The moment is extremely auspicious for 
breaking down this degrading system. The best 
citizens of our country acknowledge the feeble- 
ness of our administration. They acknowledge 
that offices are bestowed merely to preserve 
power, and without the smallest regard to fit- 
ness. If, then, there be a man in the United 
States of firmness and decision, and having 
standing enough to afford even a hope of suc- 
cess, it is your duty to hold him u^J to public 
view : that man is Andrew Jackson. Nothing 
is wanting but a respectable nomination, made 
before the proclamation of the Virginia caucus, 
and Jackson's success is inevitable." 

When, twenty years later, the New York 
regency at Albany sent the younger Hamilton to 
open negotiations with Andrew Jackson, they 
thought, in the innocence of their hearts, that 
they created him and they were going to run 
him. As a chess-player moves a pawn and 
changes it into a queen and then moves the 
queen up and down the board as he chooses, so 
the managers at Albany thought they were go- 
ing to handle this Western bush-whacker. In 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 277 

1853 the Southern Democratic leaders tried the 
same experiment with Franklin Pierce, and with 
entire success. 

But Andrew Jackson, when he was called into 
being, proved to be made of very different stuff'. 
He was neither putty nor dough. He said very 
squarely that the American people made him 
President, and that he had nobody to thank, and 
nobody to reward, and nobody to obey. It is a 
pawn who rules the board, if you please, but he 
rules it in his own way, and not as any Albany 
regency or any John Caldwell Calhoun bids him 
rule it. 

That man is a strong man who has the Ameri- 
can people behind him. Lincoln said wisely that 
you can fool some of them some of the time, but 
that no man ever fooled all of them all the time. 
The eight years of Andrew Jackson's dynasty 
were the end of the halting pretence at republi- 
canism of the first fifty years of the Constitu- 
tion. From that time down the men Avho had 
the Nation behind them have succeeded. The 
men who w^ere set up by intriguing oligarchies 
have failed. 

Up till the close of General Jackson's Presi- 
dency, as I have said, no such thing was lieard 
of as a National Convention for the choice of a 



278 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

candidate. Somebody had to make such a 
choice ; and, for want of a better, a meeting of 
the members of Congress named the candidates 
of either party. So it was that in 1825 General 
Jackson and John Quincy Adams and Mr. Craw- 
ford and Mr. Clay divided the electoral votes. 
But so soon as General Jackson withdrew, hav- 
ing named Mr. Van Bm-en as his successor, all 
the enthusiasm of the Democratic party departed 
with Old Hickory. Poor Van Buren had to face 
the terrible storm of the commercial crisis of 
1837. The fault was none of his, excepting as 
the industrial States of America are always at 
fault when they intrust their business to those 
States where nobody can mend a water-pail, or 
to statesmen who do not know a bill of lading 
from a bill of exchange, — to men who '' know 
nothing of trade," as that excellent Monroe said. 
In the crisis of 1837 half the business firms in 
the country were l:)ankrupt and half its indus- 
tries were destroyed, of which the consequence 
was that the industrial States, that is. New 
England, the West, and the great States 
between, took their affairs for once into their 
own hands. 

When they called together the great conven- 
tions of 1839 and 1810, the reign of oligarchies 



THE PEOPLE AT THE HELM 279 

and cancuses of Congressmen was over, and the 
reign of the voters began. 

In the very bitter canvasses, all crowded with 
personalities, which preceded the election of 
John (^uincy Adams and of Andrew Jackson, 
every sort of lie was told on all sides. In those 
circles of the New England States which prided 
themselves on civilization no tales were told 
with more eagerness than those which presumed 
that a Tennessee man must be wholly barbarian, 
so far as the etiquettes of elegant life would go. 
But when Andrew Jackson came to the White 
House the curiosity of the country was perhaps 
a little annoyed that the so-called elegancies of 
Washington were maintained. He did not sro 
out with a shot-gun to bring in canvas-back 
ducks from the river, and Mrs. Jackson did not 
di'ess them at an open fire. 

Still, I remember very well the anecdote in 
which Mrs. Jackson was supposed to give an 
account of a lung fever, of which, I tliink, she 
(lied. It was declared and believed in Northern 
circles that she said, " The Gineral kicked the 
kiverlet off, and I kotched cold." I should not 
tell the story but to record the resentment of a 
true lady, a relative of my own, who liad seen 
all the elegancies of the best Com-ts of Europe, 



280 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and who protested to me that Mrs. Jackson was 
a lady through and through, in breeding as in 
daily manners. My friend quoted tlie anecdote 
which I have told, only as illustration of the bit- 
terness of partisanship at that time. On the 
other hand, if any story can be received at the 
distance of one person from the spot of which 
the story is told, the story which I will now 
record is true : — 

The daughter of a Massachusetts Senator told 
me that in her younger life she went with her 
father to one of the regulation dinners at the 
White House. General Jackson himself took 
her out to the dinner-table. There was some 
talk about the light of the table, and the General 
said to her, '' The chanticleer does not burn 
well." She was so determined that she should 
not misunderstand him that she pretended not 
to hear him and asked him what he said. To 
which his distinct reply was, " The chanticleer 
does not burn well." 

MARTIN" VAN BUREN 

Of Mr. Van Buren the general impression is 
certainly that he was simply an intriguing New 
York politician, utterly indifferent to anything 
but his own advancement and the success of his 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 281 

owu coterie in the politics of New York. But 
as lately as March, 1891, I heard Mr. McKinle}^ 
express a very different opinion. I should not 
repeat what he said if he were living ; but his 
remark has for me a special interest because, 




M.VHTIN \'aX BuREX. 

After a miniature by Mrs. Bogardus. 

after that evening, I never saw him again, and 
these were among the last words I ever heard 
him utter. 

Tn his charming, cordial way Mr. McKinley 
was showing; to Mrs. Hale the arrangements of 



282 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the White House. As we passed a rather poor 
full-length portrait of Van Buren, he took a 
candle, by which he could throw a better light 
on the face, and called oiu- special attention to 
it. He said that till lately he had grown up in 
the feeling to which most of us were trained in 
younger days, that Van Buren was a man of no 
wide range of thought, or indeed of any con- 
victions ; that he was merely a selfish politician. 
But lately he had been studying those early days 
with new interest, and he was convinced that 
Van Buren was a much stronger man — a man 
far more fit for the Presidency — than history 
has on the whole believed. I suppose he had 
been reading Mr. Shepard's thorough and val- 
uable study. 

If anybody chooses to say that Martin Van 
Buren made x\ndrew Jackson President of the 
United States, I think he can maintain his thesis. 
Certainly the man who did that did something 
of importance in history. 

In the election of 1824 Jackson had enongh 
Western votes to bring him as a prominent 
candidate before the people in 1828. The New 
York leaders did not care who was President, if 
only they had " the patronage," and they seem 
to have thought that in tliis popular old General, 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 283 

then more than sixty years old, they should find 
a tool whom they could handle easily. So they 
sent the younger Hamilton all the way to tlie 
" Hermitage," as the old General called his home 
in Tennessee, to sound him, virtually to offer 
him tlie nomination, if he w'ould agree to their 
conditions. Hamilton's journey was somewhat 
like what the journey of a young New Yorker 
of the Four Hundred would be to-day if he were 
sent, say, into the " Bad Lands " to have an 
interview with a Blackfoot chief. He afterward 
printed his instructions, which are very funny. 
He was to observe the habits of the family, and 
to be able to tell such things as might be profit- 
able in the canvass — whether they had family 
prayers, whether the old gentleman asked a 
blessing at table, whether they played cards, etc. 
Let the reader remember that one of the reasons 
why John Quincy iVdams was not reelected was 
that he had a billiard-table in the White House. 
But when the New York managers had caught 
their hare and had him in the White House, they 
found, as I have said — rather to their dismay — 
that they could not manage him " worth a cent," 
to use a fine National proverb. The General 
had a very decided will of his own. He had 
the knack of cutting Gordian knots, and came 



284 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to like it. Possibly to get Van Biiren out of his 
way, he sent him as his Minister to England, — an 
official appointment which meant even more then 
than it would now. 

Mr. Parton says — and I think wisely — that 
if the United States Senate had only had sense 
enough to leave Mr. Van Buren in London, and, 
one might add, to thank God he was there, the 
history of this country since would have been 
different. But there was a strong opposition 
Senate. Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay were leading 
it, and, in the pride of power, they refused to 
confirm the nomination of Mr. Van Buren after 
he had been presented at the English Court in 
1831. He had the mortification of presenting 
his own recall, and the English Foreign Minister 
— either Earl Dudley or Lord Palmerston — said 
to him, what is very true, that, to a public man, 
an act of evident injustice is often one of great 
advantage. 

Certainly it proved so to Van Buren. The 
rejection by the Senate made him President. 
The insult had been aimed, not at him, but at 
General Jackson, and Old Hickory understood 
this perfectly well. From the moment of Van 
Buren's return he folded him in his arms and 
made his interest his first care. Will it do to 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 285 

say he made his election sure ? On Jackson's 
nomination, Van Buren was made Vice-President 
for the second term of Old Hickory, and so far 
all the new popularity which Jackson had won 
as the saviour of the Union went to the account 
of Van Buren. 

But he could not have the popularity without 
the responsibility. Whetlier he himself cared 
for the sub-treasury system or for the rest of 
General Jackson's financial policy, he had to 
take the consequences of that policy. The 
financial panic of 1837 swept over the country. 
Literally everybody suffered. Practically every- 
body charged it on the Government. A storm 
of indignation swept out the President who had 
had two-thirds of the electoral votes in 1836. 

I heard a little story, when I was in Wasliing- 
ton four years after this downfall, which illus- 
trates the bitterness with which the people of 
his own State regarded him. Things were very 
simple in Washington in 1836. Manners had 
the simplicity which they would have in a large 
country town in Virginia or Kentucky to-day. 
So it happened that of an evening, probably 
when Congress was not in session, the President 
would Avalk across to Lafayette Square and make 
an even in u' call in one of the charmino; homes 



286 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

there. The people there were glad to have him 
entertain himself as he woLild, and such home- 
like visits were often repeated. But as the " re- 
cess," as people used to call it, went on, Mr. Van 
Buren's visits at Mr. Ogle Tayloe's suddenly 
stopped. Mrs. Tayloe, herself a most agreeable 
lady from an old Albany family, told her hus- 
band that he must go over to the White House 
and ask Mr. Van Buren why he had given up 
his evening calls, and Mr. Tayloe undertook the 
commission. 

Mr. Van Buren did not hesitate in reply. He 
said that it was true that he had given up his 
visits to Mrs. Tayloe : " She has things lying 
about on her table which should not be there." 

Then it pro^'ed that, as a part of the drawing- 
room furniture, Mrs. Tayloe's matchless collec- 
tions of autographs lay on the table. It was 
specially rich in letters from New York states- 
men — letters from many men whom the whole 
world remembers. The President had been fond 
of turning these books over. They revealed to 
him some thinu^s which he had not known before. 

Mr. Tayloe went back to his wife with the 
President's message, and they applied themselves 
to studying the autograph-books. It was not 
long before this phrase was disinterred : " What 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 287 

is little Matty doing ? Some dirty work, of 
course, as usual." To this phrase, not unnatu- 
rall}^, the President had taken exception. Mrs. 
Tayioe's scissors at once relieved the book, and 
so slie wrote to Mr. Van Buren. And the Presi- 
dent of the United States was able to renew his 
visits upon his opposite neighbor. 

It is difficult for an outsider to understand 
how completely the President of the United 
States is sometimes shut in out of sight, almost 
out of sound, of the very people who have chosen 
liim. In November, 1840, as I have said just 
now, by a perfect typhoon of indignation on the 
part of the commercial and manufacturing 
States and of the West, then new to powder, 
Mr. Van Buren was swept out of office and 
old General Harrison was put in. Harrison 
liad 234 electoral votes and Van Buren had 
only 60. The election had already begun, it had 
been decided in some States, when Mr. Alexan- 
der Everett, who told me this story, passing 
through Washington, made a visit on Mr. Van 
IJiireu. Mr. Van Buren assured him, and be- 
lieved that evening, that he should be reelected, 
and reelected by a strong majority. The mana- 
gers of the Wliite House, if one may say so, the 
people who kept the President, had succeeded in 



288 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

deceiving so far the man whom posterity has re- 
garded as the most astute politician of his time. 
Mr. Everett, when he told me the story, was 
confident that this was not the talk of an in- 
triguer to an outsider, but that Mr. Van Buren 
expressed his own opinion as to the issue. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 



VOL.1. — a 



CHAPTER VII 
INTERNA I. LMPROVEMEXT 

IN an earlier chapter I told a story of the 
way in which the Connecticut River stu- 
dents of Williams College travelled fifty miles 
to and from their homes. In 1902 a student 
can go from Northampton to Williamstown in 
less than two hours. My father, in 1806, 
w^ent from the same Northampton to Boston by 
what was called "the stage" on a journey 
which he supposed would take two days. In 
fact, it took three. He began by taking the 
public conveyance from Northampton to Brook- 
iield, a ride, perhaps, of thirty-five miles. At 
I>rookfield this line connected with the stage 
line from Springfield to Boston. He had taken 
a through passage, or, as our English friends 
would say, was " booked through," so that he 
was sure of a seat in the carriage from Spring- 
field when it came along. While tbey waited 
at Brookfield, a lady appeared who w'as very 
anxious to go to Boston as soon as possiljle. 

291 



292 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



But when the Springfield wagon appeared, there 
was no seat for her, the six seats being all taken. 
With all his own khidness of heart, my father 
gave up his seat to her, spent twenty-four hours 
with a classmate, and went on to Boston the 
next day. When, afterward, he built the Bos- 
ton and Worcester Railroad and directed the 




A View of Boston, showing the Providence and the 
Worcester Railways. 

From an early drawing. 

preliminary surveys for the Boston and Albany 
roads, wdiich now carry thousands of passen- 
gers daily between Boston and the Connecti- 
cut River, he liked to tell this story of his 
three days from the Connecticut River to his 
future home. I have already told the family 
story of his voyage from New York to Troy, 
which required twelve days. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 293 

When one compares sucli anecdotes, which for 
time and distance are on the scale of Sindbad's 
voyages, against the incidents of our daily lives, 
he gets some feeling of the contrast, almost ab- 
surd, between the beginning of the century and 
the end. The steps of advance can be marked 
quite distinctly. And I should think that one 
of the wide-awake young men wlio are con- 
nected with the more than gigantic railway 
system of the country would find it worth h^s 
while to give to us a thorough histor}- of the 
progress in this business of going from })lace to 
place. A hundred years have changed almost 
every detail of almost every life in America by 
the changes wrought in travel. Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams, the second of that illustrious 
name, has made some interesting studies in 
that line. Perhaps he will build on his own 
foundations. 

It shows what manner of man Washington 
was that, in the literatm-e of the subject, what 
he wrote about the . importance of opening up 
the West, and of the details of method as well, 
is more in amount than everything on record 
said by all his contemporaries in the same 
years. It really seems as if Washington were 
the only person in the country who even be- 



294 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

gan to comprehend its future. After the Revo- 
lution his diaries are full of the journeys which 
he took, even as far as the valley of the Ohio, 
and they often dwell on this great business. It 
was a matter of course that the New York 
people should see those natural facilities for 
reaching the lake region which they after- 
ward developed. Every soldier in every army 
which tramped through central New York, as 
well as every trader who brought in a pack 
of beaver, told the same story of a country 
without mountains, easy for canals or other 
highways. Travellers do not perhaps recol- 
lect generally that, until a period which does 
not seem very long, the waters of the West 
did not seek the valley of the St. Lawrence, 
but crossed to what we call the Hudson 
River, and found the ocean by what I sup- 
pose I must call the Vanderbilt route. I be- 
lieve the geologists think this was not ten 
thousand years ago. I suppose that till the 
end of the eighteenth century, however, the 
Iroquois Indians seemed an important and 
inconvenient obstacle in the way of roads or 
canals before 1800. 

Washington's wislies for Virginia turned on 
the improvement of the navigation of the James 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 



295 



and Potomac Rivers. There is on record a con- 
versation of his in the latter part of his life in 
which he foreshadowed the Erie Canal. For 
thirty years more, far-sighted peof)le were 
planning and building canals westward. In 
New York these people were led by De Witt 
Clinton. 

This canal was opened in 1825, and has 
been a benefactor to millions who do not 
know enough to thank 
the men who built it. 
"' Give us this day our 
daily bread," this is 
the daily prayer of 
millions upon millions 
of such people. Of 
which millions, let us 
hope, one half thank 
the God who answers 
it. But I am afraid 
that even of that half, not one child of his in 
a thousand thanks the agents of the good 
God in this affair. Yet they insisted that his 
children through the world watered by the 
Atlantic should buy their flour for four dol- 
lars a barrel, as they do to-day, instead of 
paying sixteen dollars, as their ancestors often 







296 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

did before De Witt Clinton built the Erie 
Canal.^ 

When I was in college, the Josiah Quincy of 
that generation, the man who was born just be- 
fore the Revolutionary Josiah Quincy died, told 
me something about the cereal food of Massachu- 
setts in his boyhood. I knew perfectly well that 
his family was in as comfortable circumstances 
as any family in New England. He said that 
until his manhood white bread, the bread made 
from wheat flour, was, so to speak, a luxury 
on his mother's table. I remember he said it 
was served as nice cake might be served in the 
average New England family of the time when 
we were speaking. His mother would have her 
loaf of white bread in the house, but it would be 
used, not as the substantial bread of the family, 
but as a sort of extra luxury at the table. The 
family food was " r3'e 'n' injun," as we Yankees 
say, by which we mean the bread which is sold 
at restaurants as Boston brown bread. 

So much interest attached to the subject of 
canals that in Rees's great quarto Cyclopaedia, 
the ancestor of the great cyclopa3dias of to-day, 

^ I speak of rates in Boston. In Philadelphia, in the heart 
of what was then a wheat-growing county, the highest rates for 
the seventy years after 1784 was f 15.00 in March, 1796. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 



297 



one hundred and seventy-five pages are given 
to the subject, and a separate account is given 
of every canal in the British Islands at the 
beginning of the century. The American editor 
introduces a long- and careful account of the 
canals undertaken in the United States from 




Illumination of thk New Yijhk City Hall nrKiKi; thk (tKand 
Canal Cklebkation. 



the time when, under Franklin, the route was 
surveyed for a canal across New Jersey. This 
account gives the history of American canals 
up to 1805 and 1806, when the article was 
prepared. 

On the 4th of July, 1817, the first spadeful 



298 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of earth was turned for the Erie Canal, and in 
October, 1825, this longest canal in the world 
was open for traffic. The whole construction 
is an admirable object-lesson in the study of 
American life and American success. Half of 
the men who built it had never seen a canal. 
Mr. Fitzgerald tells a story of a young New 
Yorker w^ho had to do with it, crossing to 
Europe for the purpose of seeing European 
canals. He walked on the tow-paths of those 
canals and came home with the results of his 
observations. In just such fashion w^as the 
whole early school of American civil engineers 
trained, and we owe it to the country's skill in 
self-education that this school of engineers has 
achieved the methods of to-day. 

At the close of this chapter we print a fac- 
simile of a note of De Witt Clinton's in 1817, 
in which he alludes to the great work which 
has given immortality to his name. 

The Erie and Champlain canals w'ere built 
entirely by the State and cost only ten million 
dollars. Before 1830 they were paying an 
annual income of more than eight per cent to 
the State, and it w^as already estimated that 
the canals had increased the value of the real 
estate of New York by a hundred million dollars. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 299 

Such successes are conveuieutly forgotten to-day 
by people who, while eating their daily bread, 
whine about the dangers which accrue to a 
State which owns it own highways. 

It was quite natural that the men of the 
future, if one may call them so, in America, 
sliould first turn their attention to the establish- 
ment of navigable canals. The General Reader, 
though he is a person who knows very little, still 
recollects the names of Stanhope and of the 
Earl of Bridgewater and of the great engineers 
of those times. 

In point of thne the Santee Canal of South 
(Jarolina is earliest of the American series of 
canals, but the first of importance which actually 
got to work was the Middlesex Canal, uniting the 
Merrimack River of the northern part of Mas- 
sachusetts with Boston Harbor. In 1833 this 
canal passed into the ownership of the com- 
petitor which ran near it, the Boston and 
Lowell Railroad. During a considerable part 
of its existence it paid dividends. 

The charter of this canal was signed by John 
Hancock on the 2 2d of June, 1793. In the next 
October the directors chose James Sullivan, after- 
ward Governor, to be their President, Loammi 
Baldwin to be their first Vice-President, and 



300 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



John Brooks, afterward Governor, the second 
Vice-President. The early accounts say that it 
was difRcalt to collect capital stock, but eventu- 
ally five hundred thousand dollars was sub- 
scribed for this purpose. Mr. Weston, an English 
engineer, was engaged to make surveys, and 

in the spring of 1794 
the work began. The 
canal was opened in 
1803. There are not 
many persons now 
living who have 
sailed from Boston 
to Lowell in a packet- 
l;)oat on that canal ; 
but for me, one of 
my earliest memories 
is a voyage for a day 
upon it in the General 
Sidlivcm packet-boat 
from Charlestown, opposite Boston, to Chelms- 
ford. At Chelmsford they were building the 
dam which has created the water-power of the 
city of Lowell. My father was interested in 
such work, and took us all down to Chelmsford 
when he went to see the progress of the dam. 
Lowell was incorporated with its new name 




.(amks Sum.u an. Pkksidkm of 
THE Middlesex Canal Company. 
After the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 



301 



the next year, the territory being taken from 
the old territory of Chehnsforcl. 

I am told that for many years no salmon 
has succeeded in flinging himself up over the 
dam. But in that early day, when the Falls 
had the picturesque look which we are able to 
reproduce from an old paint- 
ing by an English artist, the 
salmon had not deserted the 
homes of their ancestors. It 
was a familiar tradition that, 
on one of those excursions of 
the gentlemen of the Lowell 
Company to Chelmsford, Mr. 
Isaac P. Davis,^ one of the 
leaders of Boston, went out 
to the innkeeper of the 
Chelmsford Tavern to ask 
what he should give them 
for dinner. The man said he thought they 
would like a nice salmon, and that that would 
be the resistance-piece for their party. 

As the morning went on Mr. Davis thought 
he should like to see the salmon, and went 

^ I would jirint the middle name at length. But there was 
no middle name. Mr. Davis found inconvenience from the fact 
that there was another Lsaac Davis in Bostou and he inserted 
the r to relieve them hoth from annovance. 




Colonel Loammi 
Baldwin. 
From a silhouette. The 
only kuowu portrait 
from life. 



302 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

out to ask that permission could be given him. 
To whicli the reply was : " You don't think I 
am such a fool as to catch him before we want 
him ? He is in the pool, and will not go up 




The Falls ix the Merrimack at Chelmsford. 
From a painting by an English artist. 

for twenty-four hours ; I shall go out before 
dinner and catch him." And so he did ; such 
were the simple refrigerators in which men 
kept their fish in those early days. 

The enthusiasm for buildino; canals which 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 303 

Washington and his more intelligent contem- 
poraries had attenipted to awaken, gradually 
extended itself and became almost a mania. 
The cyclopaedias and reports of the time give 
the names of such enterprises as these, which 
are among the most important. All of them 
took new life with the triumphant success of the 
Erie Canal : — 

The Middlesex Canal, in Massachusetts. 

The system of Pennsylvania, spoken of as the 
largest system of all; but the Erie Canal was the 
longest. 

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. 

The Dismal Swamp Canal of Virginia, which 
was among the earliest finished. 

The large system in Ohio, and in other States 
large appropriations for the improvement of 
rivers. 

In Marjdand the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
was begun in July, 1 828, and it was using steam 
power in 1831. 

The reader will see that there is no large 
enterprise till we come to De Witt Clinton and 
his great Erie Canal. Of Burr's two families, 
whicli divided, as he says, the politics of New 
York, the Livingstons gave to America the 
steamboat with Fulton's cooperation, and the 



304 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Clintous gave to America the Erie Canal. No 
work or word of Jett'erson's administration is to 
be compared with these, excepting the Louisiana 
purchase, the credit of which, as has been said, 
belongs to Livingston and Napoleon. 

Traces of the canal epidemic and its results 




';::: *'^' 




The SusyuKHANNA AT Liverpool, Fa., showing the Pennsylvania 

Canal. 
A comparison of the two modes of carryiiisij freight. 



may still be seen in Ohio. These owe their 
place in history, however, to the fact that John 
Quincy Adams crossed Ohio in a canal-boat ; and 
that the Ohio canals find a place in Mr. Howells's 
history of his boyhood. Li those level prairie 
States of the Northwest there were certain possi- 
bilities for such enterjDrises. The attempt of the 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 305 

great State of Pennsylvania to take a canal 
across the Alleghanies seems to us now almost 
magnificent in its blundering audacity. Possibly 
this readei- may live to see how our poor Penn- 
sylvania, or rich Pennsylvania, had to pay forty 
million dollars to Sydney Smith and others who 
had furnished the money for this quixotic en- 
deavor. New Jersey lent herself more readily 
to such enterprises. 

But if Mr. Eads's successors shall give us, as 
they think they can, a railway on which ocean 
steamers shall be lifted to cross the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepec from ocean to ocean, why, in their 
success, the Pennsylvanian legislation of the 
twenties will be remembered and justified. 

The reader in America should remember what 
Mr. George Morison reminds us of in his address 
at Chicago, that there never has been a time 
when canals were considered so important a part 
of the transportation system of Europe as in this 
very day. 

There is a curious letter of Robert Fulton's, 
written by him as early as 1807 to Albert Gal- 
latin, then Secretary of the Treasury. It ac- 
companies Gallatin's report to the National 
Government on canal communication. Gallatin 
shows how freight could be carried from Boston 

VOL. I. — X 



30G MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to Savannah without exposure to an enemy's 
cruisers. This report was prepared in days when 
the English frigates Belvedere and Leander and 
Leopard and Guerriere were parading up and 
down our coasts, were occasionally running into 
our waters for the impudent purchase of supplies, 
and were enraging every man who loved his 
country as they picked off seamen at the will of 
their commanders from American merchantmen. 
Gallatin advised the Nation to send its freight 
barges from Boston by Weymouth to Tauntou, 
in a canal to be built for that purpose. Then the 
canal-boats would sail down Taimton River. 
They were then to run the gantlet into Long 
Island Sound, taking the chances of fog and 
northwest gales for dodging their enemies into 
these safer waters. By the Sound and Hell- 
Gate and the East River and New York Harbor, 
behind Staten Island perhaps, they were to 
come to Amboy, from Amboy to cross by a 
canal to Philadelphia; they were then to float 
down the Delaware to Wilmington, to cross by 
another canal to the head of the Chesapeake, to go 
down the Chesapeake as safely and prosperously 
as Rochambeau and Washington went. Then, 
through lines which adventurous readers take 
to-day through the Dismal Swamp, for instance, 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 307 

and this or that sound, Avliieh are protected from 
English cruisers and easterly storms by Cape 
Fear and Cape liatteras and Cape Lookout, the 
Hingjham pails of Massachusetts and the negro- 
cloths of Woonsocket were to be delivered at 
Savannah. 

I cannot find that Fulton's .interesting letter 
is alluded to l)y any of his so-called biographers. 
He discusses in detail the value of a canal sys- 
tem. Of the several canals suggested bv Galla- 
tin for his vo3^ages all are now in operation 
excepting that by which he meant to cross 
Massachusetts. 

Fulton says in his letter that he had l)een 
pressing canal service on the Nation for eleven 
years. He urged a good canal system, first, for 
its effect to raise the value of the public lands ; 
second, in cementino; the Union and extending 
the principles of confederate republican govern- 
ment. " At the conclusion of my work there is 
a letter in which I contemplate the time when 
canals should pass through every vale and wind 
around each hill, and ])ind the whole country 
together in the bonds of social intercourse. 
And I am now hoping to find that tlie period 
has arrived when an overflowing treasury ex- 
hibits abundant resources and opens the mind to 



308 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

works of such immense importance." This was 
written on the eighth day of December, 1807. 

Gallatin's table at the end, which tells how 
much it will cost to build the necessary canals 
between Boston and Savannah, shows that they 
need only be eighty-eight miles long, have a 
total lockage of 548 feet, and cost $3,050,000. 

Of all the canal enterprises of that time, I 
suppose that the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is 
now the most important, with the great exception 
of the Erie. I l^elieve the chief service of this 
canal is the delivery of Cumberland coal at navi- 
gable waters. It never reached the Ohio River, 
as its name and charter proposed. 

But the knell of American canals had, for tlie 
time, struck. In 1825 — about the time when, 
with firing of cannons and ringing of bells. New 
York celebrated the marriage of the Hudson 
with Lake Erie — George Stephenson built a 
special engine-factory at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 
England, that he might create a school of men. 
I count that enterprise as the date when modern 
civilization begins. He meant to have men who 
could build machinery which could be relied 
upon. He created a school of men. He in- 
vented the tubular ))oiler, and those men and he 
built the Rocket, and the Rocket won the prize 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 309 

of five lunidivd ]j()iiii(ls wliicli the Liverpool 
and Manchc'stcr Railway had ottered for a 
Avorkal)le locomotive engine. The word " loco- 
motive " came into use. Modern civilization 
was changed. 

Mv father has been called, rightly enough, I 
think, the founder of the railroad system in New 
England. When I was a child, lie made with 
his own hand a model of a railway, which stood 
in our parlor, tliat he might explain to visitors 
what he was talking about when he spoke of a 
rail or a flange or an inclined plane. As a child, 
I understood as well as I understand now the 
look of pity on people's faces as they left the 
room, thinking how sad it was that a man of as 
much sense as he should give himself up to such 
delusion. He forced the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts to the formation of an Liternal Ln- 
provement Commission, and, as a member of 
that Commission, he wrote its reports after the 
first. 

In earlier reports of the Internal Improvement 
Board he had followed up in detail the success 
of Ste})henson and of steam power in England, 
iiut I cannot but notice that in their first report 
to their own stockholders the \yorcester Rail- 
road Directors do not even allude to steam 



310 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

power. It seems as if they would not intro- 
duce at a business meeting a subject which was 
still matter of discussion ; but the next report 
takes steam power almost for granted. And 
it was as early as 1828 that locomotive engines 
had been used in New Jersey, in Maryland, 
and in South Carolina. It is in the report of 
1832 that there is a full computation made of 
the saving of steam power over power of horses. 
Readers in New England will be amused by the 
statement of the number of persons who travelled 
between Boston and Worcester in the year 1830 
and the year immediately before. Fifty thou- 
sand travellers is the largest which can l^e esti- 
mated after you have calculated on stage-coaches 
and tm^npike tolls and have guessed at private 
vehicles which went over the old road. 

In the case of the Boston and Worcester road, 
Mr. John Milton Fessenden was engaged as 
engineer-in-chief — a young gentleman who had 
graduated at West Point only a few years before. 
It is said in the report that he had travelled in 
Europe and had seen all the railways in Europe 
at that time. In his first report he compares 
the price and value of the T rail against the flat 
rail which was used on most of the early Ameri- 
can roads. He speaks of the Stevens Rail by 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 311 

name, a bit of which was presented to Mr. 
Carnegie the other day. AYhen this is spoken 
of as the first T rail, the first American rail is 
meant. Stephenson had used the T rail in Eng- 
land before this rail was rolled. Those of ns 
who are more than sixty years old have often 
ridden over flat rails. The special excitement of 
such a ride was the possibility that the end of 
the rail might loosen, and that the wheel of the 
car might run under the rail instead of above it. 
In this case the rail became what was called a 
snake, and, with its sharp point entering the 
bottom of the car as the train went on, all the 
passengers who sat directly over the rail were 
transfixed and spitted as so many pigeons might 
be prepared on the spit for. dinner. 

The State of Pennsylvania, with a sort of 
plucky audacity which, as it seems to me, has 
characterized Pennsylvania more than once, 
adopted the scheme of carrying out two plans 
which were in rivalry. 

Louis Philippe used to call himself the repre- 
sentative of the juste milieu in France. His 
radical enemies used to say that the King's 
principle was this : One set of men said two and 
two make four ; another set of men said two 
and two make six ; and he determined that 



312 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



two and two make five. This is iu truth a 
good definition of the juste miUeu. The State 
of Pennsylvania could not complete a canal from 
Philadelphia to Pittsburg because of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. Still it wanted to try canals. 
They started a canal from the Susquehanna up the 
Juniata. They then took the boats on the rail- 







The Pioneer Lixe Station at Lancaster, Penn. 

way over the mountains, and on another canal 
carried them down to the port of Pittsburg. 

In the year 1843 the State was forced to sus- 
pend the payment of the interest on its loan. 
The loyal citizens of the State felt very badly 
about this, and no wonder. The disgrace was 
vividly pointed out in what may still be remem- 
bered as Sydney Smith's letter about Pennsyl- 
vania. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 313 

The men of character and ability addressed 
themselves at once to reform the State's 
finances ; the back interest was paid ; and at 
this moment the credit of the State is as high 
as it ever was. In this crisis the railways and 
canals were sold to the great Pennsylvania Com- 
pany who now carry ns from Philadelphia to 
Pittsbnrg in seven or eight hours, all the way 
by rail. 

The early travellers to the West give very 
amusinu; accounts of the transfer from water to 
land and from land to water. Of such accounts, 
Dickens's in the " American Notes " is perhaps 
the best rememljered, but there is a very bright 
sketch by Mrs. Stowe wliicli ought not to be 
forgotten : — 

" ' But, say, there ain't any danger in a lock, 
is there ? ' respond the querists. ' Danger ! ' 
exclaims a deaf old lady, poking up her head. 
'What's the matter? There ain't nothiif l)urst, 
has there ? ' ' No, no, no ! ' exclaim the provoked 
and despairing opposition party, who tiud that 
there is no such thing as going to sleep till they 
have made the old lady below and the young 
ladies above understand exactly the philosophy 
of a lock. After a while the conversation 
again subsides; again all is still; you hear only 



314 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



E2PRESS PAST LIHS. 




C \ R • » T \ G Ci «L B O \T 

OFFICE. 

For Philndelplna wnd Pittsburg, tttunlcff near 

t/if Itrpnt. Snrih Queen Street. /Mrcastcr, 

Twu doors South of Chamberlin'a 

Hotel 

TniS LIN'K is of acknowledged speed Br» 
commendjlions l>Dve been given by tS« 
irosi rompcteni judc^cs. in relation lo its many 
kdvaptages 1 he extreme neatness of 



THE BOATS 




The comfort »nd adaptation of the 

STAGES 




AKV) CAR'S. 



are not to he surpassed by anvlhinpon the route. 
The Fare will Se as low i'- '<ii' of any of the 
other lines. >ih1 the aprents will t>e lea'Iy and 
williVig lo '•oiirlur.e lothc comCoit of tlir paasen. 
ger^. sef thai their l>aggaj:e is stnctiv taken care 
of and look >0 every urr^nferhtnt nccesbary to 
their accommodation The Horipr. uho is known 
lo he ohlijing. Mill comoy haijg-age "o anv jiart 
of the city for those who 'lesire n The under" 
»i(jneil Ajrent will endeavor to add tti >lie com» 
fori of Uiosf wlip m^y p;>lroniac thf txpress 
Line 

WM A HAMBIUGHr. 
■^othT ron ICxPUEss Lvne. 

Mux 'n. If 37 



the trampling of 
horses and the 
rippUng of the 
rope in the water, 
and sleep again 
is stealing over 
you. You doze, 
you dream, and 
all of a sudden 
you are startled 
by a cry, ' Cham- 
bermaid ! Wake 
up the lady tliat 
wants to be set 
a s h o r e.' U p 
jumps chamber- 
maid, and up 
jump the lady 
and two children, 
and forthwith 
form a commit- 
tee of inquiry as 
to ways and 
means. ' Where's 
my 1) o n n e t ? ' 
says the lady, 
half awake, and 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 315 

fumbling among tlie various articles of that 
name. ' I thought 1 hung it up behind the 
door.' ' Cau't you find it?' says poor chamber- 
maid, yawning and rubl»ing her eyes. ' Oh, yes, 
here it is,' says the lady ; and then the cloak, 
the shawl, the gloves, the shoes, receive each 
a separate discussion. x\t last all seems ready, 
and they begin to move off, when, lo ! Peter's 
cap is missing. ' Now, where can it be ? ' solilo- 
quizes the lady. ' I put it right here by the 
table leg ; maybe it got into one of the berths ! ' 
At this suggestion the chambermaid takes the 
candle and goes round deliberately to every 
berth, poking the light directly in the face of 
every sleeper. ' Here it is,' she exclaims, pull- 
ing at something black under one pillow. ' No, 
indeed, those are my shoes,' says the vexed 
sleeper. ' Maybe it's here,' she resumes, dart- 
ing upon something dark in another berth. 
^ No, that's my bag,' responds the occupant. 
Tiie chambermaid then proceeds to turn over all 
the children on the floor, to see if it is under 
them. In the course of which process they are 
not agreeal)ly waked up and enlivened ; and 
when everybody is broad awake, and most un- 
charitaljly wishing the cap, and Peter too, at 
the bottom of the Canal, the good lady exclaims, 



316 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



' Well, if this isn't lucky ; here I had it safe 
in my basket all the time ! ' And she departs 
amid the — what sliall I say ? — execrations ? — 
of the whole company, ladies though they be." 



i'^ 




ThK Eh IK (ANAL. 



The old announcements of successive steps in 
the advance of internal transit are often very 
funny. Sometimes the appalling ignorance of 
the future crippled men's best efforts. In the 
treaty of 1814, only three years before Clinton's 
first spade blow, and three years after the first 
Ohio steamboat, it was with difficulty that even 
Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Clay could be held up at 
Ghent to the mark of retaining for the United 
States the great Northwestern Territory. " What 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT 317 

is tlie use ? It only gives }ou the care of the 
Indians." Yet in that doubtfnl territory are 
now onr States of Iowa, Wisconsin, half Michi- 
gan, Minnesota, and who shall say how ninch 
of the country westw^ard ? 

Neither Gallatin nor Clay apprehended the 
value of the steamboat in this matter. Here is 
a triumphant announcement from the Boston 
M^eekhi Messenger of November 1, 1811, as to 
what might be expected of it — " thirty-five 
miles a day " ! 

" The Steamboat 

" Built at Pittsburg, by Rosewelt & Co., for 
tlie navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, 
to cariy^ goods and passengers Ijetween New Or- 
leans and the different towns on those rivers, 
was loaded at Pittsburg the beginning of this 
month, and would sail about the 10th instant 
for New-Orleans. We are told she is an excel- 
lent, w^ell constructed vessel, al)out 140 feet long, 
will carry 400 tons of goods, has elegant accom- 
modations for passengers, and is every way fitted 
in great stile. It is supposed that she will go 
o-j miles a day against the stream, and thereby 
make a passage from Orleans to Pittsburg in 
six weeks ; but as she must go considerably 



318 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

faster with tlie current, she will make the pas- 
sao-e dowai in two or three weeks." 

Observe Rose welt ! 

In 1811, as a correspondent reminds me, the 
passage, even on the Great Lakes from Buffalo 
to Detroit, required at least five days and often 
twice as much. 

Here is a facsimile of a note of Clinton's, 
referring to his master-work, written as early 
as 1817: — 



/ /C*,*-^ .^i-^.^^ ^,s<^ . 



Part of a Letter written by De Witt Clinton in 1817. 




f — 




EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 

From a drawing by Alfred Hougbtou Clark. 



Memories of a Hundred Years 



VOLUME II 



THE ORATORS 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDEED YEARS 

CHAPTER I 

THE ORATORS 

MODERN AMERICAN ORATORY 

THE cant phrase of couventioual conversation 
says that the age of oratory is over. I do 
not believe this. The conditions are changed. 
The methods are changed. But it is as true as 
it ever was that if a man wants to lead men, he 
had better be able to tell men what he wants. 
And it will be well for him and them if he can 
tell them this, so that they shall believe him and 
remember afterward what he has said to them. 
William McElroy, who is himself no mean 
judge, told me that George William Curtis once 
said to him that the most remarkable passage in 
modern oratory, the passage, that is, that is best 
worth remembering, is the passage well known 
and often cited in Waldo Emerson's oration at 
Dartmouth in I808. Carlyle speaks of that ad- 
dress as lying on a counter in an Oxford book- 

3 



4 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

shop and arresting Gladstone's attention before 
Gladstone was thirty years old. 

" You will hear every day the maxims of a low 
prudence. You will hear that the first duty is 
to get land and money, place and name. ' What 
is this Truth you seek, what is this Beauty ? ' 
men will ask, with derision. If nevertheless 
God have called any of you to explore truth and 
beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you 
shall say, ' As others do, so will I : I renounce, 
1 am sorry for it, my early visions ; I must eat 
the good of the land and let learning and 
romantic expectations go, until a more con- 
venient season ; ' — then dies the man in you ; 
then once more perish the buds of art and 
poetry and science, as they have died already 
in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that 
choice is the crisis of your history, and see that 
you hold yourself fast by the intellect." 

Mr. McElroy quoted Curtis's remark to Roscoe 
Conkling, who differed from him. He said that 
the finest passage he remembered from any man 
of his time is Charles Sprague's reference to the 
American Indian in a Fourth of July oration. 
One would be glad to liaA^e a dozen such opinions 
from a dozen such leaders. The passage which 
Mr. Conkling; referred to is this : — 



MODERN AMERICAN ORATORY 5 

" Roll back the tide of time. How painfully 
to 118 applies the promise, ' I will give to thee, 
the heathen for an inheritance.' Not many 
srenerations a^ro, where vou now sit, circled with 
all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the 
rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild 
fox duu" his hole nnscared. Here lived and 
loved another race of beings. Beneath the 
same sun that rolls over your heads the Ind- 
ian hunter pursued the panting deer ; gazing 
on the same moon that smiles for you, the 
Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the 
wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and the 
helpless, the council-fire glared on the wise and 
tlie daring. Now they dipped their noljle limbs 
in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the 
light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they 
warred ; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, 
the defying death-song, all were here ; and when 
the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke 
of peace. Here, too, they worshipped ; and 
from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer 
to the Great Spirit. He liad not written his 
laws for them on tables of stone, but he had 
traced them on the tables of their hearts. Tlie 
pool- child of nature knew not tlie God of revela- 
tion, but tlie God of the universe he aeknowl- 



6 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

edged in everything around. He beheld Hiui in 
the star that sank in beauty behind his lowly 
dwelling, in the sacred orb that flamed on him 
from his midday throne, in the flower that 
snapped in the morning breeze, in the lofty pine 
that had defied a thousand whirlwinds, in the 
timid warbler that never left its native grove, in 
the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet 
in clouds, in the worm that crawled at his foot, 
and in his own matchless form, glowing with a 
spark of light to whose mysterious source he 
bent in humble though blind adoration." 

EXAMPLE OF EDMUXD BURKE 

Emerson himself had an enthusiastic admira- 
tion for Webster, until he thought he had be- 
trayed the North. To the day of his death he 
had an admiration for Edward Everett, whom 
he had known first when he was a professor of 
Greek literature at Harvard College. I shall 
speak of Emerson in another place, but this is 
perhaps the best place to say that he had an 
opinion quite indefensible as to the knack of 
absolutely extempore speech, — a knack which, 
according to me, any one can master. But 
Emerson did not think so. 



EXAMPLE OF EDMUND BURKE 7 

When the century came in, the echoes of 
Edmund Burke's voice were still resounding in 
England and America. In Mr. Everett's preface 
to "Webster's works, and in a passage of his own 
autobiography, he refers to the impression which 
Burke's eloquence made on the minds of all edu- 
cated young Americans. You can trace it, I 
think, even in Webster's earliest addresses. It 
will not do to speak lightly of Burke, but 
Webster was a greater man than Burke, and one 
likes to see that he outgrew such tricks of ora- 
tory. There are phrases of his which Burke 
could never have written. 

Here is one of Mr. Everett's confessions : 
" When I w^as at College the English authors 
most read and admired, at least by me, and 
I believe generally by my contemporaries, 
were Johnson, Gibbon, and Burke. I yielded 
myself with boyish enthusiasm to their un^esist- 
ible fascination. But the stately antithesis, 
the unvarying magnificence, and the bound- 
less wealth of diction of these great masters, 
amply sustained in them by their learning, their 
power of thought, and w^eight of authority, are 
too apt, on the part of youthful imitators, to de- 
generate into ambitious wordiness." It is plea- 
sant to see that (Jharles Sprague, to whom 



8 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Conkling alluded, had recognized the power of 
Webster's speech six years before the Hayne ad- 
dresses. Here is what he said on the 4th of 
July, 1825 : " The struggling nations point to 
our example, and in their own tongues repeat 
the cheering language of our sympathy. Al- 
ready, when a master spirit towers among them, 
they call him ilieir Washington. Along the foot 
of the Andes they breathe in gratitude the name 
of Clay ; by the ivy-buried ruins of the Parthe- 
non they bless the eloquence of Webster ! " 
Mr. Everett more than once speaks almost as if 
he himself had been misled by Burke in his 
own earlier days ; and in revising his earlier 
addresses for the standard edition of his " Ora- 
tions " he sometimes tones down the exuber- 
ance of what he would have called boyish 
rhetoric. 

I may say in passing that dear Dr. James 
Walker was once talking to me of the advan- 
tages of repeating in the pulpit an old sermon : 
" You may alter the arrangement, you may 
change the illustrations, you can improve the 
argument perhaps, and, above all, you can leave 
out all the fine jxissages.'^ 

But I hesitate a little about printing this 
amusing bit of criticism. In Everett's case- I 



EXAMPLE OF EDMUND BURKE 9 

am quite sure that he did not always improve 
the text by such severity of older years. 

Mrs. Browning, in " Lady Geraldine's Court- 
ship," in later editions tones down what was 
once written, — 

" And the resonant steam eagles 
Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand " 

to 

" And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her 
acres.'' 

One remembers all about the theory of realism 
and the rest, but, after all, " steam eagles " was 
better. 

Tennyson, in the same way, tones down 
" Locksley Hall." But youth is youth. And 
the average reader of poetry is less than thirty 
years of age. Can we not let young men speak 
to young men as young men like to speak to 
young men and to young women ? 

EDWARD EVERETT 

After Mr. Everett's defeat in 1839 in the 
Massachusetts election for Governor, an occasion 
still remembered in our local politics, in which 
he lost his election literally by one vote, he went 



10 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to Europe for a long stay. In the next autumn 
there followed a great revulsion in the National 
history. For once the West and the North 




Edward Everett. 
From a daguerreotype. 



united against the South, and William Henry 
Harrison was chosen President. He made Mr. 
Webster his Secretary of State, and Mr. Webster 
offered to Mr. Everett the post of our Minister 



EDWARD EVERETT 11 

to London. Mr. Everett went to London in 
1841 and remained there until the autumn of 
1845, rendering essential services to the Nation, 
and proved himself better acquainted with our 
international relations than any other man liv- 
ing. This might w^ell be, as he was one of the 
few men who used familiarly the languages of 
the Continent of Europe, and as he had never 
lost sight of the interests which were intrusted 
to him, when he was in Congress, as a member 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I may 
say here that his attachment to Mr. Webster, 
which was very close, was never broken. 

I happened, as a youngster, to be standing by 
so that I saw a pretty incident w^hich is a good 
illustration of Avhat happens in a democracy, 
wdiere " our governors are from ourselves." I 
was with Mr. Everett w^hen he w^as Governor and 
was visiting the Worcester jail. The sheriff, an 
accomplished gentleman, said to the Governor 
that they had a prisoner w^aiting trial whom no 
one could understand. The man was a Levantine, 
as it proved ; but their Italian interpreters could 
make nothing of his langi:uai>:e. Mr. Everett 
tried hiui in Italian with as little success. But 
instantly we could see the glow^ of satisfaction 
on both their faces when he changed to modern 



12 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Greek and the poor prisoner could tell his 
story. 

Mr. Everett was very fond of me from my 
childhood, and very good to me. I think he 
talked with me with a certain intimacy which he 
seldom enjoyed with others. For the misfortune 
of his life was that he was a very shy man. 
Since his death people have said to me that they 
always noticed in the street that he was walking 
alone. 

He said to me one day in the spring of 1846 
that it was already long enough, since his return 
from Europe, for him to satisfy himself that the 
stately oration of twenty years before was for 
America a thing of the past. He advised me as 
a young man to accustom myself to speak to 
large or small audiences without a manuscript 
before me, to accept the more colloquial habit, 
which I think he would have called the " habit 
of the stump." ^ After this time he prepared 
some of his own most elaborate written addresses ; 
but I doubt if he ever carried the manuscript 
into the assembly where he was to speak. In 
an interview in his own beautiful library, when 

^ About the same time, Orville Dewey told me how to do it. 
I think it was he who told me always to speak in public " when- 
ever any one was fool enough to ask " me. 



EDWARD EVERETT 13 

we were l)otli lifteon years older, lie said to me 
that ill preparing an address he then never put 
on paper any ))it of narrative. It" you know 
what you are describing, you can tell it witli 
most spirit if you are not in the least fettered. 
I might add that, with a memory like his, you 
mitrht be sure to make no mistake as to the 
facts. But for a matter of persuasion, of logic, 
or argument in any form, he thought that this 
should be prepared in advance, with all the cau- 
tion which is implied in the use of pen, ink, and 
paper. Thus, in his own address on George 
Washington, he did not write down the nar- 
rative of Braddock's defeat until he wrote it 
down for the printed edition. It was a new 
story to every audience. But the philippic 
against Marlborough, and the conclusion of the 
address, were, to the last letter, considered in 
advance. And though he never took the paper 
upon the stage, these were the same to every 
audience. 

As I went away from this talk, he said : 
'' Come round when you can, and I will tell you 
how I get up an address, for I think I have 
some methods which other men do not know." 
I cried out, laughing, that I thought so too, and 
tliat every one else thought so. He was not dis- 



14 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

pleased, and said that when I could come round 
he would tell me what his secrets were. Alas ! 
these must have been the last words I heard him 
speak. The next time I saw his face it was 
silent in death. His death was very sudden, fol- 
lowing immediately on an appeal in Faneuil Hall 
for the destitute people of Savannah. 

There are two or three foolish anecdotes afloat, 
which I hear more often than I like to, about his 
preparing stage effects in advance. All these 
failles are based on the supposition that he had 
no presence of mind before an audience, and that 
he could do nothing in situations which he had 
not anticipated. The truth is, on the other 
hand, that he was never so much himself as 
when he was before an audience, and that he 
rather liked any suggestion of the moment 
which broke up the stift'ness of what you might 
call ex cathedra or academic discoiuse. His 
friend John Henry Clifford, afterward Gover- 
nor of Massachusetts, was one of his staff" 
when he was Governor. He once told me this 
story : — 

In the year 1837 Mr. Everett had accepted 
an invitation to speak at Williams College. This 
College had never l^een visited before by a Gov- 
ernor; but at this time the Western railway 



EDWARD EVERETT 15 

had l>een opened, and it was with a certain en- 
thusiasm that the Coniniencenient exercises of 
that year were undertaken, because the western 
county of Berkshire was really for the first time 
imited to the capital of the State. The College 
was proud, the people were proud, that the Gov- 
ernor was to be there ; but Mr. Everett, quite 
unconscious of this sort of feeling, had jjrepared 
and taken with him an oration, such as he might 
have delivered at Phi Beta at Cambridge, on the 
" Influence of German Thought on the Contem- 
porary Literature of England and America." I 
once thought I detected the oration in another 
place. He arrived with his staff on the evening 
of the loth of August, and was entertained at a 
great social party l^y the President. He found, 
undoubtedly to his satisfaction, that " half the 
county had come in," and that the occasion was 
one not so much of literary importance as of 
Massachusetts pride. 

Accordingly, next day, w^ien the time for his 
oration came, he delivered an address on the 
" Relations of the Fi'ontiei- Towns of New Eng- 
land to the Histoiy of the World," as exhibited 
in the French War, in which P.pliraim Williams 
was a commander of Massachusetts troops, — the 
same Ephraim Williams who had founded the 



16 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

new college. The address was received with 
the absolute enthusiasm which waited on his elo- 
quence everywhere. As the assembly passed out 
from the church, Clifford met in the porch one 
of the fine old Berkshire sachems, a gentleman 
of position and cultivation, as enthusiastic as the 
rest. Clifford said to him, "And how do you 
like our Governor ? " " Like him ? I am only 
thinking what a fool I am. I talked to him for 
an hour at the President's party, and, by Jove, I 
was telling him things that he knew better than 
I do." The simple truth was that through that 
hour the Governor had been pumping his Berk- 
shire man for local detail which the next morn- 
ing had been reflected on the Berkshire audience. 
The address itself had all the charm of a man 
who seemed to the manor born, while he iDrought 
to it all the eloquence of classical education and 
of European travel. 

More than once I have had to report Mr. 
Everett verbatim in some careful address, and 
you must trust me when I say that the address 
itself, with its fresh and personal contact with 
the audience, was always superior to the manu- 
script which in the severity of his habit he had 
prepared before. 

He was hopelessly sensitive to what the press 



EDWARD EVERETT 21 

printed, nut knowing Avliat 1, wlio was bred in a 
newspaper office, know, first, tliat of whatever is 
pnt in the newspaper, half the people who see it 
do not read it ; second, that half of those do not 
nnderstand it ; third, that of the half who under- 
stand it, lialf do not believe it ; fourth, that of 
the half who believe it, fully half forget it ; fifth, 
that the half who remember it are probably of 
no great account anyway. This may be accepted 
by way of a parenthesis and forgotten with the 
rest. 

The year I was thirteen years old Mr. Everett 
was to deliver an address which I think one 
of his best. It was at Lexington, Mass., on 
the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Lex- 
ington. He had tact enough, and so much kind- 
ness that he came over one day and asked me to 
hunt up for him this quotation : — 

'•' Where should the soldier rest hut where he fell ? " 

It is an excellent line, but written, I now 
think, by himself. I was honored by his asking 
me to help him in the address, and went down 
to the Athenaeum and ran my eye through prob- 
ably three or four hundred odes and poems 
which seemed to be possilile sources of the line. 
I did not tind it, and as I have not found it in 



22 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

sixty-six years more, I do not believe it is to be 
found, except on the last page of the Lexington 
address where he used it on this occasion, and in 
other places where I have quoted it. Having 
had this share in the preparation of the address, 
I begged eagerly at school and at home that I 
might be permitted to go to Lexington and hear 
it. But no ! The rules of the school did not 
permit the absence for a few hours of a boy who 
was " preparing for college," and so I lost my 
chance.^ At the same moment, probably, I 
contracted a disgust for the mechanism of the 
public schools which I have ventured to ex- 
press on all proper occasions between that time 
and this. 

I had, however, had a chance, on the 6th of 
September, 1834, to crowd into Faneuil Hall 
with the boys who had no tickets, in time to 
hear the close of his eulogy on Lafayette. Mr. 
Everett was an enthusiast about Lafayette ; and 
let me sav here that all the men who knew La- 



1 But only three years before, as a friend reminds me, when 
Mr. Webster came on to " address his fellow citizens in Faneuil 
Hall in regard to Jackson's Nullification Proclamation and to 
persuade them to support him in the course he took, the Latin 
School boys were dismissed and sent down to the Hall to hear 
him." It is just possible that the Master wanted to go himself 
on this occasion. 



EDWARD EVERETT 23 

fayette best were enthusiastic about him. It is 
only people who did not know him, like Carlyle, 
who speak of him with contempt. 

When I am asked, as Mr. Conkling was, what 
are the passages of oratory which 1 remember as 
most iinpressive, I am apt to recur to the close 
of that eulogy. Near the close of his address 
Mr. Everett freed himself entirely from every 
conventionality of the platform, as he turned his 
back upon his hearers to Stuart's Washington 
and to the bust of Lafayette which were behind 
him, and cried, " Break the long silence of that 
votive canvas ! Speak ! speak ! marble lips, 
and teach us tlie k)^'e of liberty protected by 
law!" 

Nothing is more absurd than the habit current 
in our day of referring to Everett's eloquence as 
if it w^ere academic or as the address of a supe- 
rior to inferiors. In truth, he brought his audi- 
ence into sympathy with himself almost as soon 
as he began, and carried them with him as if 
they were all in the same boat. 

I heard an undergraduate say once, of a 
preacher of whom he was fond, " By Jove, he 
reads the Bible, not only as if he thought it the 
most important book of books, but as if he 
thought we thought so." In this rough epigram 



24 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I am disposed to think is contained the defini- 
tion of what constitutes real eloquence, — the 
sympathy, at least for the time, of the speaker 
and the hearer. As so many men have said, 
the audience teaches the speaker, not what 
he is to say, perhaps, but how he is to 
say it. 

But on all that matter the diligent reader had 
better refer to Mr. Everett's own preface to 
Webster's orations. 

Writing in 1856, eleven years after his return 
from London, Mr. Everett says of the American 
community of the first quarter of the century, 
that the ii-reat events and the anniversaries of 
the last half century " were well adapted to ex- 
cite the minds of youthful writers and speakers 
and to give a complexion to their thoughts and 
style. They produced, if I mistake not, in the 
community at large, a feeling of comprehensive 
patriotism, which I fear has, in a considerable 
degree, passed away. While it lasted, it 
prompted a strain of sentiment which does not 
now, as it seems to me, find a cordial response 
from the people in any part of the country. 
Awakened from the pleasing visions of former 
years by the fierce recriminations and dark fore- 
bodings of the present day, I experience the feel- 



EDWARD EVERETT 25 

intj; of the ancient dreamer when cured of his 
harmless delusions : — 

"' — me occidistis, ainici, 
Non servastis, ait, cui sic extorta voluptas, 
Et demtus per vim mentis gratissimus error.' " ^ 

This seems to me, writing in 1902, to be a 
very pathetic sign of the time. He wrote it in 
the midst of the recriminations which preceded 
the war. You can hardly make a Massachusetts 
man believe to-day that our Massachusetts Legis- 
lature refused to display the United States flag 
on the State House of Massachusetts. And I 
fancy that to-day any Mississippi man would be 
scandalized if I reprinted Logan's fine remark, 
when speaking of that State in 1863, " They do 
not know the American flag when they see it, 
they do not know anything good, they do not 
know anything at all." Certainly, in 11)02, 
nobody says such things, and I do not think 
there are many people who believe them. 

''■ " ' — ah, friends,' he cried, 
' You meant to save me. Better far have died ! ' 
For when they snatched away his joy, they took 
The srracious error which had blessed his life." 



26 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

The poet Lowell had left college for a few 
months when he Avent into Boston, on the 9th 
of November, 1838, "to look out for a place in 
business." I thhik I never pass the rather gro- 
tesque Parthenon front of our old Court House 
in Boston without thinking of that walk of 
Lowell's, as he came through Cambridge Street 
into Court Street. Observe that at ten o'clock 
on that 9th of November he meant to go into 
mercantile life. " I was induced, en jMssant, to 
step into the United States District Court, where 
there was a case pending in which Webster was 
one of the counsel retained. I had not been 
there an hour before I determined to continue in 
my profession (of the law) and study as w^ell as 
I could ! " This was what happened to Lowell 
when he was nineteen years old. 1 may as well 
say here that he studied law seriously and to 
such purpose that when it came to be his tmii 
to be a diplomatist in Sj^ain and in England he 
knew perfectly well what he was about, and had 
no superior in his business. 

I tell that story l^ecause it shows the sort, of 
impression which Mr. Webster made on all in- 
telligent people. I have quoted above what 




Damkl \Vkb,sii;k. 
From a daguerreotype. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 29 

Charles Sprague, who was an excellent ciitic, 
said of him foiu*teen ^^ears before. But Webster 
himself says, '• Eloquence does not consist in 
speech ; it is derived from the man, the subject, 
and from the occasion." 

The theory of the Hall of Statuary in Wash- 
ino;ton is that each State shall furnish a statue 
of the two most distinguished men in its history. 
I think most men who care for history would 
say that the two most distinguished Massachu- 
setts men, since 1620, have been Benjamin 
Fi-anklin and Daniel Webster ; Benjamin Frank- 
lin is mentioned in any history of modern times, 
Daniel Webster in any history of America. 

But it so hap]jened that Massachusetts drove 
Benjamin Franklin away when he was seventeen 
years old. He served the State afterw^ard at a 
very important crisis as her agent in England ; 
Ijut he lived in Philadelphia, in London, and in 
Paris. 

So w^e could not have Franklin's statue in the 
Statuary Hall, because he did not live in Boston. 
That was his misfortune and om's. On the other 
liand, Daniel Webster was born in New Hamp- 
shire. He came to Boston to study law with 
Christopher Gore in the year 1804, almost 
precisely as Benjamin Franklin w'ent to Phila- 



30 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

delphia to study life when he was a little 
younger. In 1816 Mr. Webster came to Boston 
to live, and Massachusetts was his home from 
that time until he died in 1852. But his statue 
cannot be in the Statuary Hall for Massachusetts, 
because he was not born there. 

For the same reason which keeps him out, 
Benjamin Franklin is kept out from the Penn- 
sylvania statues. Of the two statues of Pennsyl- 
vania, the . first is of Robert Fulton, who would 
be left out by the rule by which Massachusetts 
left out Franklin. Of the other most of my 
present readers never heard. I should like the 
guess of those who are not informed as to the 
two which Massachusetts has there. New Hamp- 
shire o;ave a home to Daniel Webster in the Hall. 
Fortunately, the Nation has had no such restric- 
tions as bouud Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. 
In the decision as to the Hall of Fame in New 
York last year, Washington and Lincoln stand 
first. In the second rank are Franklin and 
Webster, "tied" in an even vote. When the 
busts of these two statesmen are erected, it will 
be literally true that the stones which the build- 
ers rejected stand very near the head of the 
corner. And in the Capitol, where Franklin is 
left out from the statuary halls, he does stand 



DANIEL WEBSTER 31 

with Joliii Hancock by the staircase in tlie 
Senate corridor. 

All this by way of preface to my own per- 
sonal recollection of Mr. Webster, who removed 
to Boston from Portsmouth six years after my 
father arrived there. I think they had known 
each other at Exeter. 1 think my father had 
once or twice taken Ezekiel Webster's place in 
liis school at Kingston Street in Boston when 
Kzekiel was not well. What I know is, that 
from the time Mr. Webster came to Boston the 
two families were very intimate with each other. 
Mr. We1)ster had been a member of Congress 
from New Hampshire, and his war speeches, 
whicli ai'c iiHitortant and very interesting, were 
made when lie represented New Hampshire. In 
1814 his house in Portsmouth was burned down, 
and I think it was always a grief to him that 
the library which he had already collected, which 
was of interest and value, was destroyed. Ac- 
cording to his biographers, wlio knew, I suppose, 
it was this misfortune which determined him on 
leaving New Hampshire. He went to Albany 
to consider the advantages which that city of- 
fered for his residence and practice of the law. 
One cannot read all this without asking what 
would have happened IF — 



32 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Here was the first statesman of his time ; here 
was the first orator of his time ; here was the 
most remarkable American of the nineteenth 
century. If he had lived in Albany for the rest 
of his life, what would the history of New York 
and of the United States have been ? Would 
the politics of New York have been what John 
Quincy Adams called them in 1829 — one of the 
devil's own unaccountables ? Would the influ- 
ence of that State, from Burr's time to Marcy's, 
have been turned steadily in the scale of the 
Southern oligarchy ? These are interesting ques- 
tions for people who like to ask questions which 
are useless. They are thrown out now for the 
benefit of old gentlemen of eighty who are living 
in their comfortable homes on the slopes of the 
Rocky Mountains, whose mails have been broken 
up by freshets, so that they have heard nothing 
from the modern world for the last few weeks. 
We will not consider them any longer. 

My father had had a similar question before 
him when he went to Troy in the autumn of 
1805. He had decided to come to Boston, and 
had arrived here in the spring of 1806. Mr. 
Webster had decided to come to Boston, and he 
arrived here in 1816. His name appears in the 
Boston Directoi-y of that day as residing in Som- 



DANIEL WEBSTER 33 

erset Street, from which he removed to Mount 
Vernon Street. 

In the same yea,r my father was married. I 
speak of this here because from the very begin- 
nnig, so far as I can see, Mr. and Mrs. Webster 
were most intimate friends at our house. Al- 
most every summer it was the habit of my 
father to go somewhere with him shooting. 
Boston men did that more then than they do 
now ; I suppose there were more birds then. So 
it happened that in August, 1826, my father and 
mother, and Mr. and Mrs. Webster, and Judge 
Story and Judge Fay, went down to Sandwich 
and stayed for a week, more or less, at Fessen- 
den's Tavern (the word hotel for an inn was 
hardly known in New England for many years 
afterward). I was a boy four years old, and 
Edward Webster, my nearest friend, having 
passed his birthday, was rated as five. We boys 
were forever together, and at that time it was 
that I first fired a gun. This was very likely 
Mr. Webster's gun. The gentlemen came home 
from shooting one afternoon, and there was a 
barrel which had not been emptied. I was per- 
mitted to rest it over a rail and fire it at a shin- 
gle. I did this witli awful terror, but was greatly 
pleased when I had succeeded and was not killed. 



34 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I tell this in detail simply to speak of Mr. 
Webster's abundant kindness to children always. 
One of my earliest recollections is of sitting at a 
large table at his house in Summer Street, when 
we were all playing " commerce " together. I 
said : " I have not got a counter left. I wonder 
if there is any friend who will lend me some?" 
Mr. Webster was sitting next me ; with charac- 
teristic tenderness and lavishness, he said, " Ed- 
ward, so long as I live you shall never say you 
have not a friend," and pushed over as many of 
the red and white counters as I needed. 

My intimacy with Edward Webster continued 
all through our school and college life ; indeed, 
till he threw away his life in the Mexican War. 
Mr. Webster's intimacy with my father contin- 
ued till his death, and naturally, therefore, I saw 
him much more than most boys or young men 
could have seen a man of his age. 

There is a good anecdote, which is not one of 
my remembrances, but which is perfectly well 
authenticated, that when he was delivering one 
of his great addresses, Mrs. Webster was in the 
gallery of the church, where she had taken Ed- 
ward, my little friend, I suppose in order that he 
might remember hearing his father on a critical 
occasion. In the course of the address, Mr. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 35 

^yebster, in his most vigorous way, cried out, 
"Will any man dare say" — so that the child 
was himself impressed with the folly of any 
person contradicting his father, and in a 
clear voice he replied from the gallery, " No, 
Pa!" 

On my first visit at Washington, I called at 
Mr. Webster's at once. This must have been in 
1843. He was Secretary of State. I have never 
forgotten the ease and simjilicity with which, at 
dinner, he kept the conversation on such things 
as would interest a young man, and in particular 
would interest a person who had just before been 
engaged in teaching. He went back to speak of 
his old days as a schoolmaster, when, once or 
twice, my father had taken his place. I had 
spoken of my interest in botany, and he began 
talking about Linna^us's letters, with which he 
was quite familiar, and from which he cited curi- 
ous things. I, alas ! had never seen Linna^us's 
letters. Then, because I had been a master in 
the Latin School, he brought the conversation 
round to Thirlwall's " History of Greece," which he 
had read with interest. Alas ! I had never read 
Thirlwall's " History of Greece." I do not think 
that there was the least wish to overpower a 
youngster in this ; it was merely the ease with 



36 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

which he adapted himself to the man whom he 
was meeting. 

I was afterward the very intimate friend of 
George Jacob Abbot, who was Mr. Webster's 
confidential secretary when he was Secretary of 
State under Fillmore. Mr. Abbot used to say 
that Mr. Webster would rise early in the morn- 
ing, light his own fire, and work for three hours 
by himself, really finishing in that time all the 
business of the day. He knew only too well 
that " Mr. Unexpected " would take the rest of 
the day. Accordingly, just when they were all 
getting to their morning work in the Dej)artment, 
where the hours required attendance at nine 
o'clock, Mr. Webster would come in as if he 
were the most unoccupied man in the world. 
He would stand in front of the fire and say, 
" Mr. Abbot, what do you think of Pope's ren- 
dering of such and such a line in the ' Iliad ' ? 
Do you think the Greek word bears this and 
that? Send a boy for the volume, and let us 
look at it together." There was perhaps a pre- 
tence that he had not been at work at his desk 
for three hours, just as these gentlemen were 
beginning to clear off the dockets which they 
had left over from yesterday. 

Strange to say, I do not remember the first 



DANIEL WEBSTER 37 

time I ever heard Mr. Webster speak. The first 
time I ever heard liim speak in court was in a 
case in the Supreme Court at Washington, where 
lie was counsel for the Girard heirs in an effort 
which they made to overthrow the Gu^ard will. 
It did not seem to me that his heart was much 
in the matter. It is in that speech that he made 
a eulogy on the profession of a minister, wdiich 
Avas much cited at that time. Gu-ard had pro- 
vided in the will that no person w^ho had been 
ordained to the ministry of religion should ever 
be permitted inside the walls of his building. In 
fact, the arrangement has worked no harm, and 
probably has done some good, in the way in 
which Girard meant it should. 

At that time in Washington I used to go and 
hear Mr. Webster whenever I could. I remem- 
ber, in another case in the Supreme Court, a 
prophetic expression of scorn with which he tore 
to pieces the claim that something was done 
" under the rights of police " in a certain city. 
He said, what proved true enough, that some of 
us might live to see the time when the imperial 
Nation should assert its rights over all claims of 
local police. But the present reader in 1902 must 
remember that in 1844 the word " police " w^as 
new, in the sense in which we use it, as, indeed, 



38 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the thing itself was new. The word was familiar 
enough as describing local regulations. But men 
were only beginning to understand how far and 
how often such local regulations might claim to 
take precedence of national law. Thus, in the 
year 1844, South Carolina, under a " police 
regulation," was keeping all free black men in 
her jails, from the time they arrived in her sea- 
ports until the time when their vessels sailed 
again. 

I saw Mr. Webster's power most distinctly on 
the occasion of what we still call in Boston the 
Faneuil Hall Speech, although he must have 
spoken in Faneuil Hall hundreds of times. The 
Faneuil Hall Speech, among the men of that time, 
meant an address of his delivered in September, 
1841. I was not then on the staff of the Daily 
Advertiser properly, but it was known that we 
should need the speech in shorthand, and there 
were not many shorthand writers, so I was drawn 
in to do my share of our shorthand report of it. 
I think this is the report printed in his works. 
I had, of course, a favorable seat on the plat- 
form at Faneuil Hall. The occasion was one 
of intense interest. The whole North was com- 
mitted to the Whig party. That party had suc- 
ceeded in the choice of Harrison. Harrison had 



DANIEL WEBSTER 39 

died, and Jolni Tyler, as weak a specimen, if 
YOU except Franklin Pierce, as ever was pushed 
into a place so important, had survived as Presi- 
dent. Most of the Cabinet, including all who 
were supposed to be Mr. Henry Clay's par- 
ticular friends, withdrew, but Mr. Webster re- 
tained his place, for reasons known to himself. 
The whole body of the Whig party was uneasy 
about this, and would have been glad to have 
him resign. He wanted to have some opportu- 
nity of meeting his friends, and the appointment 
for this meeting had been made in consequence. 
Men gathered from every part of the North to 
hear this address. I have often seen Faneuil 
Hall crowded, but I never saw it crowded as it 
was then. There was not a seat in the hall ; 
men were standing as close as they could be 
packed ; they had to have their hats on because 
there was no place for the stiff silk hats if they 
had taken them off, and I remember saying, as 
we looked down, that a bird could run about on 
the tops of the hats. There was a universal ex- 
pectation that he would outline his future course, 
and probably give instruction for the movement 
of the Northern part of the party. I look back 
to it, therefore, as a particular exertion of per- 
sonal power. He used, in opening, the phrase 



40 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

which is constantly quoted, " When I look down 
upon this sea of upturned faces." He did not 
speak five minutes before he came to what was 
the real nucleus of the address. 

" If any man comes here with any expectation 
that I shall make any revelation of the policy of 
the Administration, or of any future action, he 
will go hence as wise^as he came here." This 
in his most solemn low tones, which people often 
try to imitate without any success. Then, paus- 
ing for a moment as if to enjoy the surprise of 
the assembly, he went on : " This day's sun will 
set, leaving me as free to act as duty calls, as 
when — " and by that time the whole assembly 
was cheering with the utmost enthusiasm. That 
sentence was never finished, and this whole as- 
sembly of three or four thousand men, some of 
whom had come a thousand miles to hear him, 
were rapturously applauding hini because he said 
he would not do the very thing they had ex- 
pected him to do and wanted him to do. 

It is popularly said, and I suppose it is true, 
that at about that time Mr. Webster tried to 
make the great manufacturing interests of the 
North understand that a breach was inevitable 
between the North and the South, and that any 
dalliance with any Southern party was no longer 



DANIEL WEBSTER 41 

to be hoped for. It is said, and I believe, that 
Mr. Webster would have been glad then to take 
the lead at once of the enthusiasm of the North, 
and to unite the strong feeling latent in the 
North in some such wave of indig-nation as united 
it in 1861. It is said, and I believe, that the 
leaders of the manufacturing interest failed him, 
and that it was with a heartsick feeling that he 
returned to Washington, and that he never had 
any hearty personal enthusiasm when he played 
into the hands of our Southern enemies in sup- 
porting the compromise measures. This is cer- 
tain, that the night before he made the speech of 
March 7, 1850, such men as Stephen Phillips, and 
other Massachusetts men who were committed 
to the antislavery feeling of the North, sup- 
posed that that speech was to be made in oppo- 
sition to the compromises which, in fact, Mr. 
Webster sustained. 

I do not know that I sliould have gone into 
these little personal reminiscences but for this, 
that they give me an opportunity to say one 
thing which ought to be said. Between the 
years 1826 and 1852, when he died, I must 
have seen him thousands of times. I must have 
read thousands of letters from him. I have been 
I know not how often at his house. My father, 



42 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

as I say, was his intimate friend. Now, it was 
to me a matter of the utmost personal surprise 
when I found, gradually growing up in this 
country, the impression that Mr. Webster was 
often, not to say generally, overcome with liquor, 
in the latter years of his life. I should say that 
a third part of the anecdotes of him which you 
find afloat now have reference to occasions when 
it was supposed that, under the influence of 
whiskey, he did not know what he was doing. I 
like to say, therefore, that in the course of 
twenty-six years, running from the time I was 
four years old to the time when I was thirty, I 
never had a dream or thought that he cared any- 
thing about wine or liquor — certainly I never 
supposed that he used it to excess. What is 
more, I know that my own father, who lived to 
the year 1864, heard such stories as these with 
perfect disgust and indignation. This is a good 
place to print my opinion that this class of stories 
has been nourished, partly carelessly and partly 
from worse motives ; and that they are not to be 
taken as real indications of the habit or life of 
the man. 



THE HISTORIANS 



CHAPTER II 
THE HISTORIANS 

IT was by rather a curioiLs cliance, as I believe, 
that a little coterie of historians was brought 
11]) in Boston, in the first half of the century. 
Dr. Palfrey, the oldest of the company, called 
my attention to the circumstances which seem 
to have led the earlier studies of these men. 

He himself was born in Boston, in 1795. He 
was the successor of Edward Everett as the 
minister of Brattle Square Church, the fourth 
in age of the Boston Congregational churches. 
He afterward became Professor of Sacred Lit- 
erature at Cambridge, and a member of Con- 
gress. He devoted his later A'ears to his history 
of New England. 

He said to me that, from two or tliree causes, 
it liappened that the Public Libraries of Boston 
and of the College were especially strong in the 
line of history. He said that on this account 
alone Prescott, Motley, and he himself were 
drawn, almost without knowing it, into histori- 

46 



46 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

cal research. You might almost say that there 
was nothing else they could read, except the 
Latin and Greek classics. Bancroft was born in 
Worcester, studied at Cambridge and Gottingen, 
and after some years at the Round Hill School, 
Northampton, removed to Boston. Jared Sparks, 
who took to historical research as a duck takes 
to water, lived in Boston or Cambridge after 'he 
left the active ministry of the Unitarian Church. 

And what built up these historical libraries, 
so strong in " Americana " even to this day ? 

In 1787 Jeremy Belknap, who had published 
his " History of New Hampshire " as early as 
1784, came back to Boston, where he was born. 
With several Boston scholars, whose names are 
not wholly forgotten there, he established the 
Massachusetts Historical Society. The society 
made the first considerable public library, which 
was of course a historical hbrary. It is now one 
of the most prosperous Historical Societies in the 
world, and its elegant library is one of the finest 
buildings in Boston. I am apt to say that the 
Dowse room is the most elegant room in Boston. 
It is, unless the Latin School parlor shares that 
distinction. 



JOHN GORHAM PALFREY 47 

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY 

Dr. Palfre}^, then Mr. Palfrey, christened me 
on the 19th of May, 1822. I know the date, 
for I have before nie the hill of the "hackman" 
who took my father, my mother, and the nnrse 
who bore poor me — six weeks old — to the 
church. Alas ! I was counted as nothing in 
the *' hackman's " inventory. [Mem. to out- 
landers ; hackman is New Englandese for coach- 
man, if the coach be hired.] From that time 
imtil he died Dr. Palfrey was a kind and 
tlioughtful friend of mine, and, to a generation 
which does not know him so well, I like to bear 
my little tribute to his great worth. He was 
proud of his Massachusetts descent from John 
Palfrey, one of four pioneers to pioneers, wdio 
were in the " Bay " even before Endicott. This 
is all Greek to all but the people of the 
Pay. But they, if they be of true metal, under- 
stand. 

His father was among the early settlers of 
New Orleans, after the purchase of Louisiana, 
and thrived there. The son lived a life quite 
different as minister of Brattle Street and pro- 
fessor at Cambridge. When the father died, it 
proved that his plantations had many slaves 



48 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

upon them. If the property were equally 
divided among his children, forty or fifty of 
these slaves would '-belong" to the Cambridge 
professor. The Louisiana members of the fam- 
ily knew that he would not like to own slaves, 
and proposed such a division of the property 
that the Louisiana heirs might keep the slaves, 
and our Dr. Palfrey receive something else. 
No ! He would take his share, and in 1838 
he went on to New Orleans, received his living 
chattels, and brought them on to lands of free- 
dom. He placed them, as he best could, with 
people in the West who would take care of them ; 
but he had a few left with him when he arrived 
in Boston. 

This was a practical, I might say wholesale, 
bit of abolition, at a time when " Antislavery," 
so-called, w^as not popular in the North, least of 
all among the people who surrounded Dr. Palfrey. 
He had himself borne his testimony against the 
methods of Garrison and the other leaders. But 
people believe in deeds more than in words, and, 
whether he was an " Abolitionist " or not in 
paper definitions, he became a leader in the coun- 
sels of the Free Soil people and the Republicans. 
He was one of the editors of the Common- 
ivealth. His history of New England is called 




John G. Palfrky. 
From a painting. 



JAREB SPARKS 51 

dull, perhaps, but it embodies years of hard work, 
and no genuine New Englander is well equipped 
unless he has it at hand. 

JARED SPARKS 

Jared Sparks, a Vermont boy, was a Cambridge 
graduate of the year 1815 at Harvard College. 

This was at the tune when what is called in 
New England the " Unitarian Controversy " was 
beginning. Sparks had chosen the ministry for 
his profession, and was ordained at Baltimore in 
May, 1819. He at once showed his careful train- 
ing in a series of volumes made up from the 
writino;s of the best English writers for centuries 
past. He was Chaplain of the National House 
of Representatives in 1821. His health was not 
sufficient for the duties of his calling, as he esti- 
mated them, and he resigned the Baltimore pul- 
pit in 1823. He spent many years in Europe 
and in each of the thirteen States in collecting 
materials for the history of the United States 
and the Life of Washington. 

He afterward edited the American Almanac 
and the North American Bevieiv. In 1838 he 
accepted the chair of History in Harvard College. 

He became President of the college afterward, 
from 1 811) to 1853. As early as the administra- 



52 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

tion of John Qiiincy Adams, he was appointed 
editor of the " Diplomatic Correspondence " of the 
country, that first series which is now invaluable 
to students.^ My father was a printer, and printed 
one or two volumes of the book ; and I suppose it 
was this which brought Mr. Sparks to the house 
often. Whatever was the cause, his presence 
w^as always a delight to us children. While he 
was in the room, books and slates and pencils and 
paper were pushed away, that we might hear him 
talk. It seems to me now that I have never seen a 
man's face w^hich, while strong and efficient, had 
the same tokens of tenderness. Powers' s bust 
gives some idea of this, and seems to me one of 
the best portrait busts I ever saw. 

He was already collecting materials for his Life 
of Washington. This meant that he was going 
from State to State, and from one capital in 
western Em^ope to another, to examine, and, if 
he could, to collect, original documents as to the 
days of Washington. He picked up anecdotes in 
this way which brought us, in the thirties of the 
lately defunct century, into quite close touch with 
the Revolutionary days. 

Lafayette told Sparks this story, at La Grange, 

1 That edition was out of print long since. Dr. Wharton 
edited the new edition. 



JARED SPARKS 



53 



Lafayette's home, about the year 1828. Once 
when he had returned to France in our Revolu- 
tion, two young princes came to see him, who 
wanted to join him here, really for the frolic of 
the adventure. Lafayette thought he ought to 
warn them that all was not sunshine here, and 
reminded them that they would have to rough 
it sometimes. " Certainly, certainly," said one 
of the princes. " But 
how little a man 
needs ! With an ome- 
lette and a dish of 
soup, he has enough." 
The young nobleman 
thus named, as Lafay- 
ette observed, the two 
articles of diet which 
at that time could not 
be found in America 
between Maine and 
Georgia. 

When I was in col- 
lege, Mr. Sparks was appointed Professor of 
History. I think he was the first Professor 
of History in any American college, and no 
happier appointment could have been made 
here, for a new system. The Sparks profes- 




BusT OF Jarkd Sparks. 



54 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

sorship was named for a certain Mr. Fisher, 
and I am afraid that its first service to the 
cause of history consists in its preservation of 
that gentleman's memory. Ours was the first 
class which heard Sparks's lectures. Most enter- 
taining they were, he had seen so many of the 
surviving actors of the generation before his own. 
At this moment, any one who wants to read 
American history of those times will do well to 
go to Cambridge and to get, in some proper way, 
permission to read the Sparks manuscripts. A 
key will be given to him, as erst to Bluebeard's 
wife. Then he will be directed to an elegant ma- 
hogany sarcophagus, modelled, I think, after the 
tomb of Scipio. Let him bravely open this tomb 
and read. After four or five weeks of such joy, 
he will know more of some of the heroes of the 
Revolution than any one man of their times did. 
Dr. Sparks employed a good many under- 
graduates in copying for him. I was not one 
of them, but I knew them all. It was to one 
of them that he gave the golden rule for young 
authors : "Read your proof before you send your 
manuscript to the printer." By this he meant. 
Let your manuscript be so perfect that no one 
can mistake what you want to say, and that you 
shall be satisfied when you see yourself in type. 



GEORGE BANCROFT 



55 



Let young authors know that this rule in- 
volves the great art of making yourself agree- 
able to editors. 

GEORGE BANCROFT 

My relations 
with Mr. Bancroft 
were intimate in 
many of the later 
years of his life, 
and even from my 
boyhood he was 
very kind to me. 
In tlie summer of 
1834 I was sit- 
ting in the parlor, 
readino; aloud to 
my mother, when 
my father came 
into the room 
smiling and said, 
'• Here's Mr. Ban- 
croft. The first 
volume of his his- 
tory is finished, and it is to be put to press." Mr. 
Bancroft had called to advise with my father as 
to the printing of the first volume of his history. 




(iEOKGK BAXCROFT. 

After a photograph by Fredricks. 



56 MEMORIES OF A. HUNDRED YEARS 

He was a tall, black-haired young man, quick 
and active in his movements, and smiled with 
the same gracious smile which afterward for 
more than fifty years I knew so w^ell. The 
preface of the first edition is dated on the 16th 
of June, 1834 ; in it he says : " I have formed 
the design of writing a history of the United 
States, from the discovery of the American con- 
tinent to the present time." And near the end 
he says : " The work which I have undertaken 
will necessarily extend to four or perhaps five 
volumes." 

In fact, the work extended to twelve volumes, 
and then came down only to the inauguration 
of George Washington as President. 

Five years later, in 1839, I came to see him 
and know him as I have said, intimately. He 
had in the meanwhile removed his residence to 
Boston, where he had been appointed by Presi- 
dent Van Buren Collector of the Customs. This 
is one of the truly serviceable ways which Mr. 
Van Buren' s party discovered for showing their 
appreciation of men. Mr. Bancroft had loyally 
and courageously thrown himself into the Demo- 
cratic balance while almost all of his old com- 
panions, the scholars and men of letters in New 
England, were opposed with the most deadly 



GEORGE BANCROFT 57 

hatred to Jackson and what they called "his 
crew." It proved, however, that Mr. Bancroft 
was not a bad man of busmess, and afterward, 
as Secretary of the Navy under Mr. Polk, he 
showed capacity for administration, — for orig- 
inal administration. 

I had enlisted in the service of my native 
town of Boston as under-teacher in her Latin 
School ; and, in a very bright class of boys who 
Avere interesting to me, found the two stepsons 
of Bancroft, William Davis Bliss, who after- 
ward distinguished himself at the Bar in Cali- 
fornia, and Alexander Bliss, who was an active 
soldier in the Civil War, and is remembered 
with ])leasure in Washington, which he made 
his after home. If I dared, I would print here 
Latin verses which the brothers Bliss wrote 
under my eye when they were in their teens. 

Mr. Bancroft had an earnest and, I need not 
say, intelligent interest in the education of these 
fine boys, and from this interest it happened 
that he used to let me walk with him when he 
took his constitutional after his work was done. 
In those days people who had but little leisure, 
but who had some, used to " walk around the 
Common." This was an almost standard "con- 
stitutional." I remember one night, as we 



58 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

walked through the Charles Street Mall, the 
moon rose just when the sun was setting ; and 
Bancroft repeated in German Schiller's fine lines 
where he describes such a raoonrise. 

It is now the fashion of the younger race of 
historical students to make fun of Mr. Bancroft, 
as if he did not rise to their heights or sink 
to their depths, and as if he did not handle w4th 
care the oria-inal authorities. For this ridicule 
or contempt there is really no foundation but 
that he does not like to be dull, as some men 
do ; and undoubtedly he worked a good deal 
over the style of his writing. He told me once 
that when he had been digging among old 
manuscripts or public documents he never per- 
mitted himself to write until he had read a chap- 
ter or two of Gibbon's " Decline and Fall." 
Now, you may be sure that Dr. Sparks never 
took any such trouble as that, nor Richard Hil- 
dreth. No ! nor dear Dr. Palfrey. Prescott 
did, and Motley, and Irving, and who will may 
observe the difference. For one, I am much 
obliged to anybody who tries to make it easy 
for me to read. According to me, you might as 
well write with white ink on w^hite paper as 
write anything in a language so dull that nobody 
wants to read it. 



GEORGE BANCROFT 59 

This is true, that Bancroft was an American 
from the end of the whitest hair on his head 
down to the end of the toe of his winter arctics. 
He beheved that "the cure for the evils of 
democracy is more democracy." ^ He believed 
in the government of the people for the people 
by the people. It was very hard, therefore, in 
any special case to persuade him that the people 
intentionally did wrong. But he could give way 
to the evidence. And no grandson of a Revolu- 
tionary officer could cajole him or frighten him 
iuto saying that the grandfather did right on 
some occasion when Bancroft thouo-ht he did 

o 

wrong. 

Also, Mr. Bancroft believed in God, and that 
the Power who makes for righteousness takes 
an interest in human affairs. For instance, he 
really believed that there is a course in history, 
and that events are not in a state of constant 
happening ; that there is a divine element of 
human life in history, of which a wise man, 
though he be only a small arc in the curve him- 
self, can know something and can tell some- 
thing. I believe that the fine exquisites of the 
modern school have no such faith. I believe 
that they think that events are not events, 

^ Lyman Abbott's prescription. 



60 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

that everything happens, and you might as 
well read history from the bottom of the 
page to the top as from the top to the bottom. 
Mr. Bancroft had no such theory of human 
life. 

Here is a little scrap from a private note 
which is perfectly characteristic of the man : — 

" Truth is the first object. If you detected 
any errors of omission or commission, I hope 
you will send me the list of them. 

" And let me ask if you met with any words 
which offended you as obsolete. One of my 
Eastern critics, mixing up praise of the book 
for ' great vivacity and interest,' adds : ^ I only 
regret that Little & Brown did not send out 
the glossary of obsolete words, which one re- 
quires almost as much as in Chaucer. These 
blemishes would sink an ordinary work. They 
are mere youthful affectations, and will, I have 
no doubt, disappear in the next edition.' Tell 
me candidly if this criticism has a soii'p(;on of 
justice to it. I am not aware of what gave rise 
to it ; but if a justifying cause for it exist, I 
want to know it." 

I had called his attention to his mistake in 
his original account of Bunker Hill, in which he 
cited a despatch of Burgoyne's. I had even told 



GEORGE BANCROFT 61 

him that if he had given at the bottom of the 
page a reference to the despatch, he would have 
saved himself the mistake. I was at that time 
hardly half his age, and I would not tell the 
story now, but to say that to the happy accident 
by which I corrected a few trifling errors like 
this I owed the flow of a stream of friendship 
which I constantly enjoyed for all the rest of his 
life. 

Mr. Bancroft from tlie first to the last was 
most generous iu giving the use of his invalu- 
able records to any one who wanted them. In 
Europe he had collected manuscripts which were 
simply priceless. One is glad to say that now 
they are the property of the Lenox Library, and 
anybody who is at work on any historical sub- 
ject may go into that matchless library of his 
and work an hour, or a day, or a week, as he 
likes. 

I never heard Mr. Bancroft speak with regret 
of his inability to bring up his history to the 
period in which he was writing. As I have said, 
the preface to the first volume, in the first edi- 
tion, expresses his hope that in five volumes he 
should bring up the history '' to the present 
time." The present time was 1833. Li fact, 
the twelve volumes of the historv come to the 



62 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

adoption of the Federal Constitution. We who 
were younger used to laugh about his slow prog- 
ress, though I do not remember that I ever dared 
call his attention to it. But, in fact, the great 
critical volume, the volume on the outbreak of 
the American Revolution, while it covers but 
eighteen months of history, was four years later 
in date than the volume which preceded it ; and 
among ourselves we used to say that this fortune 
was like that of the frog who hopped up two 
feet every day in the well w^iich was his prison 
and fell down three feet every night. 

But, in truth, it is quite as well that Mr. Ban- 
croft's attention should have been concentrated 
on the years to which he gave his life as a his- 
torian. Alas, we know so little of what passes 
in our own time ! And Mr. Adams, with the 
resources open to him, has been able to write for 
us a much better history of the reigns of Jeffer- 
son and Madison than Mr. Bancroft could have 
done twenty years before, with the resources 
open to him. Here I sj)eak with some personal 
feeling. In the spring of the year 1880 I re- 
ceived from the editors of Bryant and Gay's His- 
tory a somewhat urgent appeal, begging me to 
write at once for them their chapters covering 
the period from 1801 to 1812, because there had 



GEORGE BANCROFT 63 

been a mistake in the arrangements for that 
history. It is one of the admirable com- 
posite histories invented in our later times, in 
which the different chapters are confided to dif- 
ferent hands. In the very short time assigned 
to me I did the best I could ; and, as poor Pilate 
said, " what is written is written." But as soon 
as I had the good fortune to read Mr. Adams's 
volumes, I had the regret, I will not say the 
mortification, to see that about half of what I 
had written was all wrong. I had taken the 
outside view, that which men chose to print 
in newspapers and public documents. Now, in 
the cabinets which had been thrown open to 
Mr. Adams in England, in France, and in 
Washington, he had the daily photograph, the 
snap-shots, which reveal the inner motives of 
the men wdio acted. 

Mr. Bancroft was quite sure that it was he 
who made James Knox Polk President of the 
United States ; and to the last he thought that 
he did the country great service by doing so. 
Indeed, it was a little cm^ious to me to see that 
a man of his wide sweep — a man who was 
accustomed to generalize very freely — could 
persuade himself that Mr, Polk was an impor- 
tant person in any way ; or, indeed, that his 



64 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

election was anything but a misfortune to the 
country. All the same, Mr. Bancroft did think 
so, and he would tell the story of the crisis in 
the nominating Convention, in which he in- 
troduced Mr. Polk — a "dark horse" — and 
rallied to this new banner the support of both 
factions, which had been in contention in the 
Democratic Convention. What followed, natu- 
rally enough, was a close and cordial intimacy 
between him and Mr. Polk, in whose Caljinet 
Mr. Bancroft was Secretary of the Navy. And 
I feel sure that he told me that, at Mrs. Polk's 
request, he had prepared, or was preparing, a 
life of Mr. Polk. This, I think, has never been 
published. He showed me Mr. Polk's very full 
diary, written out neatly and elegantly, which 
will one day come to light, with some very curi- 
ous views, I fancy, on the politics of the time. 

There is an anecdote of the day, worth quot- 
ing, that when Henry Clay, who was the oppo- 
sition candidate, received the news of Mr. Polk's 
nomination, he said, with an oath, " Beat again ! 
A new man ! " In truth the election was very 
close. The defection of the Liberty party in 
New York to Mr. Birney lost the State of New 
York to Mr. Clay, and Mr. Polk was chosen. 

I like to remember my visits at Newport to 



GEORGE BANCROFT 65 

Mr. Bancroft in his beautiful summer home. 
We may say what we choose about fashion, 
but fashion is apt to choose well in its choice 
of its resorts. At Newport you have what for 
northern climates is to be called the kingdom 
of heaven upon earth, so far as physical condi- 
tions go — that is to say, you have your south 
w^nd off the sea. And at Newport one does 
not wonder that the hardly pressed Algonquin 
aborigines of New England conceived of heaven 
as a region in the southwest. 

One of the pleasantest nooks of the eastern 
side of Newport was Mr. Bancroft's summer 
home, and here he had his roses. He was no 
mere dabster or amateur about roses, to go out 
in the morning and snip off some beautiful 
blossoms, of whose buih and growth he knew 
notliing. He was really a fellow-worker with 
God in bringing those roses to their perfec- 
tion. Now, a perfect rose is the most exqui- 
site visible symbol w^hich we have of what hap- 
pens when man the child works with God the 
Father, and when together they bring about 
what they are working for. It is therefore, 
always a pleasure to recollect that Bancroft and 
Francis Parkman, in the midst of their hard 
work that we might know something, had heart 

VOL. II. -- F 



66 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and time and insight and inspiration and deter- 
mination and courage enough to help the world 
forward in the creation of perfect roses. 

KICHARD HILDRETH 

The country owes a great deal to the diligence 
with which Richard Hildreth collected the mate- 
rials for his history of the United States, pub- 
lished between the years 1849 and 1856. But 
the book has never been w^hat is called a popular 
book. It is one instance more of the failure of a 
brilliant story-teller when he comes do^vn to hard- 
pan, as the ungodly say, and has to address him- 
self to the business of narrative where he is, so 
to speak, chained by his facts. 

As early as 1836 Mr. Hildreth wrote a very 
brilliant novel, " Archy Moore, or the White 
Slave." In Mr. Howells's "Reminiscences" 
he has told us the impression that that book 
made on him even in his boyhood. If anybody 
chose to look up my college themes, he w^ould 
find my review of the book written at the 
time it was printed. 

But Mr. Hildreth, like so many other men 
who hold a light pen, was chained to the 
galley oar of journalism through the greater 
part of his literary life. 



KICHARD HILDRETH 



67 



He lived in Boston, and I should have known 
him personally, but that he was the editor of the 
Atlas, which was tlie rival daily to the Adver- 
tiser, which was in our family. 

When the novelist Smollett was set to the 
job of writing the 
history of Eng- 
land, he made 
one of the stupid- 
est books which 
it has been the 
duty of people 
afterward to read. 
Walter Scott did 
not fare much 
better when he 
wrote the " Life 
of Napoleon." 
Mr. Hildreth's 
book is much 

more readable than either of these, but it 
carries with it the fault that it is written while 
many of the men are alive whose work is 
to be explained, and the secrets are not un- 
locked which they have taken care to guard. 
At this moment we know a great deal more 
of the history of the Revolution, one hundred 




Richard Hildreth. 



68 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and twenty-five yecars ago, than Washington 
or Franklin or John Adams knew. They 
knew some things that we do not know and 
nobody ever will know ; but we know many 
more which were hidden from them. Men in 
political life are specially dis]30sed to " cover 
their tracks " as the slang phrase has it. They 
keep a great deal concealed. " Argus-eyed 
press " tries to make us believe that it sees 
everything ; but it does not see everything. 
Indeed it sees curiously little. And a history 
made from newspapers alone is a very poor 
history. 

For this reason Mr. Hildreth's History, like 
many other books of good authority which 
could be named, presents itself to the reader 
as a digest of public documents, and we do 
not get the local color, or what the artists 
like to call the broken lights of the fore- 
ground. 

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 

I must not say that my own relations with 
Mr. Prescott were intimate, but they were 
cordial. Mr. Prescott, like Mr. Bancroft, had 
no jealousies, and always did a favor to another 
student if he could. 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 



69 



Of one of such favors I enjoyed the results, 
in a droll way, long after his deatli. 

I was a youngster in my last year in college, 
when the President, Josiah Quincy, sent for me. 
He said, very pleasantly, that he thought I 
should like after 
I left college to 
earn my own liv- 
ing ; or, as he put 
it, to be inde- 
pendent of my 
father in matters 
of money. I said 
that that was cer- 
tainly my wish. 
Then he said that 
Mr. Prescott had 
told him he might 
offer me the posi- 
tion of his reader 
or amanuensis, a 
proposal which I received with joy. As the 
reader probably knows, Prescott was nearly 
blind. In some college foolery in commons 
some one struck his eye with a heavy crust of 
bread and wounded it so that, for the purposes 
of reading, both of his eyes were eventually 




William H. Prescott. 
From a stii)ple engraviug 



70 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

useless. One likes to say in parenthesis that 
Prescott would never tell the name of the fool 
by whose carelessness he lost his sight. 

Now, Prescott had finished his " Ferdinand 
and Isabella " with only such aid in reading 
and writing as he had from an assistant who 
did not know the Spanish language. This man 
did not even take the pains to acquire the 
very simple rules for its pronunciation, and 
he read the Spanish words to Mr. Prescott as 
if they were English. When, in the winter 
of 1838-1839, Prescott was well at work on 
his Cortes, he determined to have a reader who 
could understand and pronounce Spanish, and 
had permitted Mr. Quincy to ask me to fill the 
place. As I have said, I was delighted, and I 
said so. So I went to see Mr. Prescott, who was 
kindness itself and engaged me. I had to confess 
that I did not read Spanish, Ijut I told him I would 
get it up at once, and in fact I went to dear 
old Francis Sales, the Spanish teacher at Cam- 
bridge, and entered with him as a special student. 

But, alas and alas ! that happy week was not 
over before I received a courteous note from Mr. 
Prescott to say that he found that a friend of 
his had definitely offered the place of reader to 
another person, and that this young gentleman 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 71 

had accepted it. There was nothing for me but 
to bear my disappointment and to give np my 
hopes of seeing the Cortes in my own handwrit- 
ing. Prescott was most kind and thouglitful in 
the whole business. 




Prescott's Home at Pepperell, Mass. 
From au eugraving by J. Kirk. 

Now see what followed. Forty -three years 
after, T was in Madrid. T had gone there to 
make some studies and collect some books for 
the history of the Pacific, which, with a pro- 
phetic instinct, I have always wanted to write. 
Different friends gave me letters of introduc- 
tion, and among others the gentlemen of the 
Spanish Embassy here were very kind to me. 



72 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

They gave me four such letters, and when I 
was in Madrid and when I was in Seville it 
seemed as though every door flew open for 
me and every facility was offered me. 

It was not until I was at home again tliat I 
came -to know the secret of these most diligent 
civilities. I still had one of my Embassy letters 
which I had never presented. I read it for 
the first time, to learn that I was the coadju- 
tor and friend of the great historian Prescott 
through all his life, that I was his assistant 
through all his historical work, and, indeed, 
for these reasons, no American was more 
worthy of the consideration of the gentle- 
men m charge of the Spanish archives. It 
was certainly by no fault of mine that an 
exaggeration so stupendous had found its way 
to the Spanish Legation. Somebody had said, 
what was true, that Prescott was always good 
to me, and that our friendship began when he 
enorao-ed me as his reader. And, what with 
translating this simple story, what with peo- 
ple's listening rather carelessly and remember- 
ing rather carelessly, by the time my letters 
were drafted I had become a sort of " double " 
of Mr. Prescott himself. I hope that I shall 
never hear that I disgraced him. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



73 



AVASHINGTON IRVING 

Washington Irving is the senior in the group 
of the American historians. He was one year 
older than my father. 
I might have known 
him earlier and better 
than I did but for an 
unfortunate fit of mod- 
esty, such as belongs, 
perhaps, to a man's 
twentieth year. In the 
summer of 1840 I had 
escaped from the daily 
duty of school-keeping, 
and four of us his-hly 
determined that we 
would take our vacation 
in what was then a long 
journey — I think to 

each of us the longest of our lives. We were 
to go to New York ])y the route through the 
Sovmd, we were to go up the North River to 
Catskill and West Point, and then from Al- 
bany we were to go by stage-coach to Spring- 
field, and so by Springfield to Boston. Let the 
economical reader observe that my father, hav- 




Washington Irving. 

Painted by D. Wilkie at Seville, 
April 23, 1828. 



74 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ing built the railway from Boston to Springfield, 
could give us free passes home. I remember my 
brother said of the journey that we spent Sun- 
day in Springfield because we had nothing else 
to spend there. 

This is too long a preface, but it may stand 
as explaining how I came to be in New York 
for the first time, and, in a fashion, why I did 
not see Irving while I was there. My dear 
uncle Alexander Everett had been good enough 
to give me a cordial note of introduction to 
Bryant, who was editing the Evening Post in 
New York, and one to Irving, who was liv- 
ing at Tarrytown. When we came to New 
York my courage failed me, and I did not 
dare go to see Bryant. I knew, of course, that 
I could give him no pleasure ; I knew also that 
I should take something of his time ; and I kept 
the letter, not to present it to him until twenty- 
five years had gone by. 

As to Irving, just the same difficulties pre- 
sented themselves. The letter to Irving re- 
mained uimsed from 1840 to 1859. In that 
year I made my first visit to Niagara, and, 
by way of picking up a dropped stitch, I 
went round by New York and the Hudson 
and stopped at Tarrytown, provided with the 



WASHINGTON IRVING 75 

letter of introduction, now eighteen years old, 
and with another one given me by Edward 
Everett. Irving was cordiality itself in his 
welcome of me and of a young friend who 
was my fellow-traveller. He showed us the 
places of historical interest around his beau- 
tiful Sunnyside, and, best of all, he talked 
with the greatest freedom of his work in 
history. I pleased him by telling him with 
how much pleasure I was reading aloud at 
home the closing volume of his " Life of 
Washington," and I said that he had the 
power, Avhich few people have, of giving to 
diplomacy and matters of state the interest 
which is supposed to belong to adventure and 
to battle. This pleased him, and I remember 
he said that " rub-a-dub and roro-toro " were 
more apt to catch the ear than more quiet 
discussions of the Cabinet and of the Senate. 

Irvinsr's relation to the literature of the coun- 
try, and especially to its liistorical literature, 
make a very important part of any connected 
history of the century. His welcome to me 
in 1859 was an echo from a former genera- 
tion. He had been living in London for a year 
or more when Alexander Everett wrote him 
from Madrid that Navarette's book ou the 



76 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

original Columbus papers had been published, 
and that it would be a good thing if he would 
translate it or otherwise prepare it for American 
readers. Irving was well pleased at the sug- 
gestion, and came to Madrid, where Mr. Ever- 
ett considered him as a Secretary of Legation, 
and there in that charming Spanish home Irv- 
ing's career as a historian began. 

MOTLEY AND PARKMAK 

To return to Boston, certainly it is unusual 
that a little community, sucJi as ours here, in the 
years between 1810 and 1850, should have edu- 
cated a group of historians like Palfrey, Prescott, 
Motley, Park man, and Higginson. The remark 
with which I began this chapter, is to be taken 
into account ; I think that one has a right 
to say that the romance or picturesqueness of 
our early history in " the Bay " is to be consid- 
ered also. In a way, you might say that all five 
of these men were educated in the same way, 
they were fitted for Harvard College in the 
Boston Schools, or the schools of the neiglibor- 
ing villages. Prescott graduated seventeen 
years before Motley ; and Motley, only seventeen 
years old, graduated thirteen years before Park- 
man. As one of the little company who are 



MOTLEY AND PARKMAN 77 

left of Professor Edward Tyrrel Channing's boys 
at Cambridge, it is a pleasure to me to say that 
he taught Motley and Parkman how to write 
English. This reader does not know tliat we 
old stagers think that if you give us one hundred 
pages of Harvard College nineteenth-century Eng- 
lish, we can tell whether it were w^ritten by men 
who graduated before 1850, when Channing 
withdrew from his professorship, or after. 

Miss Sullivan said of our dear Helen Keller, 
when she was asked why Helen Keller w^rote 
better English than the group of other people 
who were in correspondence with her, " You for- 
get that Helen never read any bad English." 
Motley and Parkman, heaven knows, had occa- 
sions enough to read bad English and bad French 
and bad Dutch and bad Algonquin: but some 
guardian genius or other, may I not say Edward 
Tyrrel Channing or his spirit ? brooded over 
them, and the good English is there, as it is in 
what Higginson writes, as it was in what Emer- 
son and Lowell and Holmes wrote. 

When Mr. Webster and the short-lived Har- 
rison dynasty came in, there was a chance to 
appoiut such men as Motley to posts abroad; 
and he became, in 1841, Secretarj^ of Legation 
at St. Petersburg. But he remained there only 



78 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

eight months, and returned to America, not to 
enter the diplomatic service again until he was 
appointed to Vienna at the beginning of the 
Civil War. Charles Sumner told me once, that 
when Lincoln was making up his first lists of 
appointments, he affected to be a little annoyed 
by the pressure which New England, and espe- 
cially Massachusetts, brought to bear. To tell 
the truth, we had some men in Massachusetts 
of whom we need not be ashamed, and one of 
them, Charles Francis Adams, was appointed 
to London, and another, John Lothrop Motley, 
to Vienna, two of the principal foreign appoint- 
ments given to so small a State. When the last 
of these principal nominations was made, Lincoln 
said to Sumner, " Now, Mr. Sumner, I hope you 
will give me a little time before I hear from 
Massachusetts again." This was only a few 
days, however, before the 19th of April, 1861, 
when Sumner and Lincoln were together at the 
White House, and it was announced that the 
Sixth Massachusetts Regiment had fought its 
way through Baltimore, and was at the moment 
placed in garrison at the Capitol. Sumner said 
to Lincoln, with some satisfaction, " Mr. Presi- 
dent, you are glad to hear from Massachusetts 
to-day." 



MOTLEY AND PARKMAN 79 

I might attempt to review in a few lines the 
preposterous intrigues which made Motley throw 
up his appointment at Vienna, but I do not, 
partly because it is a pity to remember them, 
and again, because the whole story has been 
admirably told by Dr. Holmes. As a diplo- 
matist in England, he was honored and beloved. 
He was fortunate, in that he had been acquainted 
somewhat intimately with Bismarck, when hfe 
was in Gottingen, in college. Let the reader 
recollect that as late as 1861 Prince Bismarck 
was so little known by the average American 
that his name was not included in Appleton's 
" Cyclopedia," the B volume of which was 
printed in that year. I have been amused and 
lialf provoked to find in some of the machine- 
made biographies of Motley, that his '' History 
of the Dutch Republic," one of the world's stand- 
ard histories to-day, was written as if by acci- 
dent. It is told as if he drank his cup of coffee 
in the morning, and said, " What would 3'ou do 
to-day ? " and somebody asked, "^ Why not write 
a history of the Dutch Republic ? " and he said, 
''I think I will." The trutli is, that he had 
been studying it for 3'ears ; and wlien Prescott 
approached that subject, in tlie series of his 
histories, Motley explained to him how much 



80 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

time and effort he had given to it, and placed 
himself and his material wholly at Prescott's 
disposal. 

Holmes told me with the greatest pleasure 
once that Motley told him that two lines of 
Holmes's had been to him an inspiration and a 
direction. Motley had been living with his wife 
and his little children in one place and another 
in the Netherlands, so that he might read these 
time-stained manuscripts in crabbed Dutch, in 
preparation for his history. You might say that 
nobody in the world cared for it. His old friends 
even wondered why he exiled himself. Dutch ! 
Why should a man like Motley bother himself 
about Dutch ! There and thus came the 
moments of depression and discouragement. 
Holmes said that Motley told him that once 
when he was all worn out in his work, these two 
lines braced him up and helped him through, 

" Stick to your aim ; the mongrel's hold will slip, 
But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip." 

Holmes's very careful study of Motley's life, 
printed first in the Transactions of the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society, is a book which will do 
no end of good to those young people, of whom 
there are none too many, to whom the literary 
career is something serious. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 81 

Motley was a through and through American. 
There are some very interesting reminiscences, 
some of which are written by Howells, who was 
our Consul-general in the Adriatic when Motley 
was at Vienna. I always recollect, with a cer- 
tain amusement, the half despair and half fun 
with which he spoke to me just before he sailed 
for Europe in 1858. I met him and said to him, 
" Really, yougive us very little time here." And 
he said : " Well, you have nothing in Boston for a 
man of leisure. I thought I should enjoy a few 
months of leisure after my work in Holland, but 
yoii will have to hang up in the harbor, across 
the channel between Fort Independence and 
Castle Winthrop, a banner which shall be in- 
scribed with Boston's motto, 'No admittance 
except on business.' " 

FRANCIS PARKMAN 

Francis Parkman entered college just after I 
left it. The memoranda, only too brief, in Mr. 
Farnham's charming life, show how early his 
heart was set on the career which has proved so 
fortunate to his country and the world. " We 
see Parkman as a child, from eight to thirteen 
years of age, living on his grandfather's farm at 
Medford, where he developed his love of nature 

VOL. II. G 



82 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

by roaming in the woods of tlie Middlesex Fells." 
When a college student he followed on foot the 
route of Rogers from Lake Memphremagog to 
the Connecticut. 

He was one of the first travellers to see Craw- 
ford's mountain house, at Mt. Washington, in 
1841, having ridden up, on Tom Crawford's 
bridle path. He went to Maine to study the 
Indians near Bangor and to collect traditions 
of their wars with the Mohawks ; and as early 
as 1842 he was mistaken for an Indian while 
at supper in a country tavern, in Cambridge, 
Vermont. It was as early as 1846 that he made 
his home for the summer with a party of 
Ogilallah Indians in that experience so invalu- 
able to him afterward which he has described 
in the " Oregon Trail." 

Such are perhaps sufficient illustrations of his 
determination to know what he is talking; about 
when he writes history. He belongs to the real- 
ists of our centmy. Walter Scott did not choose 
to put lilies and roses into his poetry, but chose 
to name the weeds which the country people 
picked upon the hillsides. Parkman did not 
choose to describe the Indian march or the Ind- 
ian village until he had tramped in one or lived 
in the other. And this will be found to be the 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 83 

distinction between the school of history of to- 
day and that of the Humes, the Smolletts, the 
Gibbons and Mitfords. If anybody cares, it is 
this which makes the histories written in the 
last half century so much more entertaining than 
those written a hundred ^^ears before. 

I lived too near to him to maintain any exten- 
sive correspondence with him. If I wanted to 
know anything, I asked him and he told me. I 
like to remember him as I saw him on the last 
day I ever spoke with him. He was an enthu- 
siastic lover of flowers and he was sitting on a 
little walking stool which he carried with him 
in his garden, because he could not stand easily 
for any length of time. And we talked not of 
the Algonquin language, but of the flowers which 
he had brought into being by his own care. 
His name survives in the Lilium Parkmanii, a 
Japanese lily which by cultivation is magnified 
into such enormous size that an Englishman 
Ijouuht it for one thousand dollars in 1876. He 
also brought out new varieties of other flowers. 
The Bussey Institute published a list of the 
flowers of all sorts in his garden in Bulletin 
No. 15. 

From my own autograph book I copy one 
note. When I wrote my history of Kansas and 



84 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Nebraska, he was one of the handful of white 
men who had ever seen the valley of the La 
Platte. I wrote to him to inquire about the 
wood which could be used by emigrants. This 
is his reply : — 

July 28, 1854. 
" It is so long since I was in the country to 
which you refer, that my recollection of it is a 
little faded. I crossed the Black Range twice, 
at different points, within fifty miles south of the 
North Fork of the Platte, and penetrated it else- 
where within the same limits. The chief growth 
is Cottonwood and poplars ; but there are pines 
and firs of very considerable size, though not 
in great number. In some of the valleys and 
gorges there is a thick growth of tall and slen- 
der spruces. No walnut is found. Pines of good 
size are sometimes to be seen on the adjacent 
open prairies, growing singly or in small groups. 
I did not penetrate the mountains between Lar- 
amie Plains and the head of the Arkansas, but 
from a little distance they often appear studded 
thickly with firs and pines. They are, in other 
places, quite bare. I should think that the 
country could supply pine timber enough to be 
of essential service to settlers, though they 
would have to rely chiefly on the sun-baked 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 85 

bricks for building. If this region is ever good 
for anything, it will be for pasturage. 

" You speak of the Arapahoe language. I 
remember trying to distinguish their words, but 
one might as well try to find articulate sounds 
in the growling ' of a bear.' " 

As it happened, Parkman ascended Mt. 
Washington for the first time in the same sum- 
mer in which I made my first ascent there. So 
it happens that I have at hand a copy of his 
journal of that summer. Here is a little scrap 
from it. Is not this good description for a boy 
in his eighteenth year ? 

" On each side, thousands of feet below, 
stretched a wide valley, girt with an amphi- 
theatre of mountains rising peak after peak like 
the black waves of the sea, the clouds now sink- 
ins; over their summits, now risinu; and breakintr, 
disclosing yet more distant ranges, and thus 
settling thick and heavy so that nothing was 
visible but the savage rocks and avalanche slides 
of the neighboring mountains looming dimly 
through the mist. At length the clouds closed 
around and w^e could not even see one another, 
and we descended Mount Pleasant in dark- 
ness." 



86 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Parkman died on the 8th of November, 
1893. My son Robert had a young student's 
enthusiasm for Parkman, but I am afraid they 
never met. Robert wrote this sonnet on his 
death : — 

" With youtli's blue sky and charming sunlight blest 
And flushed with hope, he set himself to trace 
The fading footprints of a banished race, 

Unmindful of the storm-clouds in the west. 

In silent pain and torments unconfessed, 
Determination written on his face. 
He struggled on, nor faltered in his pace 

Until his work was done and he could rest. 

" He was no frightened paleface stumbling through 
An unknown forest, wandering round and round. 
Like his own Indians, with instinct fine, 
He knew his trail, though none saw how he knew ; 
Reckoned his time and reached his camping ground 
Just as the first white stars began to shine." 

How pleasant a thing it would be to give here 
even a little sketch of the work of Mr. Higgin- 
son as a historian. "In the wide range of his 
duties, as soldier, preacher, poet, and indeed, lib- 
erator of mankind in general, he does not forget 
that he descends from John Higginson, the first 
" teacher " of the first Puritan congregation in 
" the Bay," a pioneer to the pioneers, as I said 
of John Palfrey. But I could write nothing 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



87 



about his life which I should not send to him for 
criticism and correction. He would strike out 
all of it, because he would call it too cordial 
in its praise ; and he 
would, in his good 
nature, write a pas- 
sage of history which 
would take the light 
away from my Memo- 
ries. 

In the group of 
Massachusetts histori- 
ans belongs John 
Fiske also. He has 
died since the prepa- 
ration of these papers 
beg;an. I think that 
even his friends were 
surprised when in 
some public state- 
ment, made more than 
twenty-five years ago, 

Fiske said that the history of America was 
his favorite study, and that he hoped he should 
come back to it before he died. Fortunate 
for us that he did come back to it ! Nothing 
that I could write here would add to the ad- 




The First Home of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 
From an early photograph. 



88 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

miration, and I might almost say reverence, 
of those who have read his histories, or of 
those who have been guided and blessed by his 
simple statements of the most profound realities 
of the infinite life of man. 

Of Mr. Henry Adams's masterly work, which 
will be prized more and more with every new 
year, I have already spoken. 



ANTISLAVERY 



CHAPTER III 

ANTISLAVERY 

SEVENTY YEARS 

ANY fond hope which I may have had, 
when the kind reader and I began on 
these papers, tliat we could condense into twelve 
articles any series of such reminiscences as we 
have written, has already been sadly abandoned. 

How can we treat this hustling, jostling, 
bustling half-century which w^e have seen with 
our eyes, as we did that half-century of myth 
and tradition which our forefathers lived in ? 

There is so much of it, so much of invention, 
so much of discovery, such miracles in religion, 
such marvels in politics ! 

The reign of God is so much closer ! 

Why, in 1830, George Henry Corliss took out 
his first patent for the Cut-off. That one man 
added fifteen per cent to the working power 
of the human race by that invention. Will a 
score or two of historians write that out for us ? 

And then we will be ready to trace out what 

91 



92 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



has followed on gutta-percha, or Grove's sus- 
taining battery, or the spectroscope, and a thou- 
sand other such trifles. 

So far as this reader and I are concerned, 
from this time forward we must make only a 

selection from 
the great range 
of subjects 
which belong 
in the study of 
the miraculous 
change of the 
world in the 
last century. 

That matter 
of internal 
improvement, 
touched upon 
only too briefly 

William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell already in 

''"'"""'• Chapter VII., 

is an illustration of the change wrought by work 
in one direction. There are hundreds of others 
which any one who reads with any system ought 
to follow out, if he really means to comprehend 
the difference betw^een his own life and his 
grandfather's. Thus, in 1801 there was a very 




SEVENTY YEARS 93 

considerable maritimo commerce. We built the 
best ships iu the world from as good ship timber 
as there was in the world. Before this, in 
the Revolution, in the sea fights of Lord Howe 
and D'Estaing and Paul Jones and the S])anish 
captains — the spars in every ship built by 
either of the four nations were spars from the 
forests of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, or 
New York. I have seen men who had seen 
pine trees in the New Hampshire w^oods which 
still l)ore King George's broad arrow. This 
was the sign that they were selected for the 
King's Navy. 

The peoj^le who built ships w^itli such ad- 
vantages could man them with the best sea- 
men in the woi-ld — the descendants of Danes 
and Norwegians, men w'hose ancestors had been 
trained since the Cabots' time, at least, in the 
fog-banks and among the icebergs of the fisheries. 

And there were, thank God! enough of such 
men. New^ Eng-land had more such men fi<j:ht- 
ing King George upon the ocean in 1780 and 
1781 than Kino; George had on the same 
ocean fighting America. The ocean commerce, 
for which such men were bred, consisted in 
1801 in the exportation to Europe of furs, 
hides, potash, tobacco, timber, and other forest 



94 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

productions ; and to the West Indies of almost 
every article of agricultural produce. In return, 
these ships brought back almost all the manu- 
factured articles which America needed. Thus 
the steam-engine which Fulton placed in the 
Clermont was made by Watt and Boulton 
in England. We were beginning also to sell 
the "notions" of our seaboard, with only too 
much of the rum which we made from West 
India molasses, to the redskins on the Pacific. 
They gave us in return the otter skins and 
beaver skins and sables which we carried across 
to the mandarins of China, from whom we 
brought teas and silks aud chinaware and the 
other wonders of the East. But long before 
the century ended, Cotton had asserted itself 
as king ; we were no longer importing our nan- 
keens and calicoes and muslins and other tex- 
tiles with Chinese or Sanscrit names. We 
were sending our long-cloths to Canton and our 
bales of cotton over all the world. The great 
three-deckers which carried out our cotton to 
England were fitted for then' return with the 
partitions for families and the berths for bed- 
ding which should meet the needs of five 
million people who had to leave the old hemi- 
sphere for the new. 



SEVENTY YEARS 95 

The introduction of home manufacture and 
the creation of machinery dependent on home 
manufacture and the railway system make up 
another of the revolutions of the century. The 
emigration from east to west, frowned on by 
Brahmins and Pundits, but insisted on by the 
determined sagacity of the People, is another 
of those revolutions. 

And at the heart of such physical changes 
there were advances in intellectual training, hi 
morals, and of course in social order. Take the 
higher education of women. At the beginning 
of the century the Moravian School at Bethle- 
hem, in Pennsylvania, was the only school in 
Auierica to which young women were sent for 
any considerable distance for intellectual im- 
provement. And in the public-school system 
of the country, so far as there was any such 
system, girls had not even the poor chance which 
l)oys had. 

But it is idle even to make a catalosrue of 
visible changes in social order which have 
taken place in the last two generations — I 
will not say even three. Let me cite only the 
least instance of all, of advances which ought 
to be touched upon. Take the history of the 
chemical match. In the year 1782 William 



96 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Franklin, in Paris, wrote to the chemists who 
had sold him chemical matches for fire that he 
would like to show some friends the new chemi- 
cal match. They replied on the first of Octo- 
ber : " We have sent for some phosphoric 
matches, but Monsieur Detopierre had none 
made. We have one which we send you. . . . 
To-morrow we shall have more, and if you need 
to send to us, we will send you a dozen." 

It is an interesting thing to look back on a 
day when there was but one chemical match 
in Paris. But as late as 1828 I and my brother 
introduced the chemical match into the menage 
of my father's family. Until that time the 
old-fashioned tinder-box, a machine which I 
cannot buy in Boston to-day, presided on the 
mantelpiece in our kitchen. We boys intro- 
duced what were called phosphorus matches. 
We bought them at the apothecaries', giving 
twenty-five cents for a case. You dipped the 
match, which was made of chlorate of potash, 
into a sponge which was charged with sulpluiric 
acid. Think of the new light which has come 
to every household in America in the seventy- 
four years that have passed since ! And let 
some young man who has five years before 
him, give an account in his history of the cen- 



Seventy years 



97 



tury, of the introduction of the friction match 
and of the thousands on thousands of years 
which it has saved to the human family. 

Tlie friction match, then, ought to make one 
chapter in these memoirs. But there are a 
thousand other advances of more importance. 

To name Ideas, 
instead of things, 
the great Mission- 
ary Movements, 
so far as America 
is concerned, be- 
gan in this cen- 
tury. The Tem- 
perance Societies 
and many other 
philanthropic in- 
stitutions belong 
in our Hundred 
Years. The whole 
liistor}^ of emigra- 
tion from Europe, 
after 1040, be- 
longs to them, with l^ut a few exceptional inci- 
dents, such as Oglethorpe's enterprise and 
William Penn's. The opening up of the West 
is one of the advances of the Kingdom of God. 




William Ellery Chanxing. 
From the portrait by Gaiiibanlella. 



98 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

The whole system of manufacture is another ; 
the development of the treasures which the good 
God left scattered around loose in the shape of 
metals is another ; and I might go on, literally 
with a thousand more. 

All of these changes were dominated by the 
assertion of the moral laws. Man is nearer 
to God, and he knows better how near God is 
to him, than he knew in the year 1801. Man 
knows that God loves him. The fable of total 
depravity has gone where it belongs, and man 
does not pretend even to believe that he is a 
child of the devil. With this great discovery 
the whole of life is changed. There are new 
heavens and there is a new earth. 

For the remaining chapters of this series, 
then, I am to select only three or four steps of 
the progress which God's children have made in 
America. I shall select them merely as my own 
personal life illustrates them. And it is almost 
of course that the first of these steps, however 
Ijriefly it is spoken of, should be the advance 
which the country made in the abolition of 
slavery. This is a business which began with 
seriousness in the debates on the Missouri Com- 
promise in 1819. It is a business, also, which 
is not finished yet. But let us hope that, with 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 99 

the new Commission oi Education, with the 
triumphs, really miraculous, of Hampton, Cal- 
houn, Tuskegee, Snow Hill, and the rest, we 
need not give up the game. With such 
triumphs to reassure us, we may look forward 
and not back. 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 

I bring together a very few notes and a few 
personal recollections to serve as what I call 
" broken lights " which to a certain extent illus- 
trate conditions which are often misunderstood. 

There seems to have been, when the century 
began, an indifference, which is now curious, as 
to the critical and universal importance of a 
radical solution of all the questions regarding 
slavery. I have already said that I have found 
no writer w^ho at that time regarded the matter 
of slavery as indicating the cleavage line between 
North and South. Gouverneur Morris, whom I 
have cited, spoke of the antagonism as that be- 
tween five oligarchies and eight republics. The 
distinction is absolutely correct, but he does not 
refer in form to slavery, out of which the oligar- 
chies were created. In the critical election of 
1801 Jefferson was the Southern candidate and 



100 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Burr the Northern. But Burr, until he died, 
never cared a straw for slavery, while Jefferson 
at that time would have been called an anti- 
slavery man. 

In a measure, this indifference may be referred 
to the outside fact that there were still a few 
slaves in most of the Northern States. In Rhode 
Island, and perhaps one might say in Pennsyl- 
vania, there were so many as to incline the 
people of those States against entering on any 
radical projects for abolition. In Philadelphia, 
however, there did exist the strong repugnance 
of the Quakers to slavery, a repugnance which 
from an early time had shown itself in public 
"testimonies" and in the habits of domestic 
life. 

For some reason there certainly was a general 
indifference to the subject, wliich, as I have said, 
seems curious when we think of the catastrophes 
which have followed. We look back now on 
slavery and its consequences as involving a ter- 
rible war, and conditions of social life which 
carry with them our most dangerous problems. 
But for the first twenty years of the century the 
discussion may be called purely academic, and 
indeed it hardly assumes that importance. To 
my own mind the real distinction of the great 



CAUTION!! 

GOLOmiD PEOPLE 

OF BOSTON, ONE & ALL, 

YOQ are hereby respectfully CAUTIONED and 
advised, to avoid eooTersing witb tbe 

Watchmen and Police Officers 
of Boston, 

For since the recent ORDER OF TITE MAYOR &, 
AIJ)£R9I£N) they are empowered to act as 

RIDNAPPER8 

AMD 

Slaye Catchers, 

And they hare already been actually employed in 
KIDNAPPING, CATCHING, AND KEEPING 

SLAVES. Therefore, if you valae yonrlilBERTT, 
and the JVetfare of the Fvigilives among yo^, Shun 
them in erery possible manner, as so many HOtfUfDS 
on the track of the most unfortunate of your race. 

Keep a Sharp Look Out for 

KIDNAPPERS, and have 

TOP EYE open. 

APRIL, 24, 1851. 



iHEonouK Parker's Placard. 
Placard written by Theodore Parker, and printed and posted by the 
Vigilance Committee of Boston after the rendition of Thomas Sims 
to slavery iu April, 1851, 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 103 

antislavery agitators of the beginning is that 
they forecast the future truly. Even now I do 
not see that any of them can make any other 
claim to statesmanship. It seems fair to say 
that the moi-al sense of the Christian world 
becomes more quick with every year ; and that 
the absolute wrong of slavery asserted itself 
more and more distinctly as this improvement 
went forward. 

You can find traces of the dislike of slavery, 
not from economical grounds, but simply on 
moral principle, almost as far back as John 
Hawkins, who invented the English slave-trade. 
Hawkins lived lonu; enoug-h to fig:ht ao;ainst the 
Spanish Armada. I am the more interested in 
him because the genealogies say that he is my 
grandfather's great-grandfather's great-great- 
grandfather, or something of that sort. What 
T know is that l^ecause he invented the English 
slave-trade Queen Elizabeth knighted him and 
gave him for a crest a " kneeling blackamoor." 

As early as the " Body of Liberties," compiled 
in 1641, the General Court declared, " There 
shall never be any bond slaverie, villenage, or 
captivitie, unless it be lawful captives, taken in 
just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell 
themselves or are sold to us." And all captives 



104 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

or foreigners, free or not free, are at liberty to 
come to any public court, and, either by .speech 
or writing, to make any motion. 

But within fifty years of Hawkins's death, 
when the first slaves were brouo^ht into Massa- 
chusetts Bay, the General Court sent them back 
again with a stiif protest which declares 

" The Gen'all Co'te, conceiving themselues 
bound by y'' first opportunity to bear witnes 
against y*" haynos & crying sinn of man stealing, 
as also to pscribe such timely redresse for what 
is past, & such a law for y" future as may suf- 
ficiently deterr'all oth's belonging to us to have 
to do in such vile & most odious courses, iustly 
abhored of all good and iust men, do order y* y® 
negro interpreter, w^'' oth'* unlawfully taken, he, 
by y'' first oportunity, (at y'' charge of y'' country 
for psent) sent to liis native country of Ginny, & 
a letter w"' him of y'' indignation of y® Corte 
thereabouts, & iustice hereof, desireing o'' hono'ed 
Gov''n'' would please to put this order in execution. 

" The Cort thought fit to write to M'" Williams, 
of Pascataq, (und'standing y* y'' neg^s w'^'' Capt 
Smyth brought were fraudulently & iniuriously 
taken and brought fro'" Ginny, by Capt Smiths 
confession, & y" rest of y'' Company,) y' he forth- 
w**" send y*" neger w*"*' he had of Capt Smyth 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 105 

hither, y' he may l)e sent liome, w''' y*' Co't dotli 
resolve to sen back w"''out dehiy ; & if yo" have 
any thing to aleadge why yo" should not returne 
him, to be disposed of by y*" Cort, it wil be ex- 
pected yo" should forth av*'' make it appear, either 
by yo'selfe or yo"" agent, but not to make any 
excuse or delay in sending of him." 

The charter of the Province by King William 
III. of the date of 1690 is very strong. It gives 
to all residents in the province " the liberties of 
natural-born subjects." But, in face of this, 
slavery worked its way in. Somewhat as Mr. 
Chamberlain is sending prisoners of war to the 
Bermudas just now when I am writing, Gov- 
ernor Stoughton and the otlier magistrates of 
Massachusetts had sent King Philip's wife and 
child to be slaves in the Bermudas in 1676. On 
the other hand, the same Judge Sewall who 
hanged the witches was printing his tracts 
against slavery as early as 1700, and until he 
died in 17o0 he renewed his protest on all 
occasions. 

But, at the same time, here is Daniel De Foe 
in 1719 creating Robinson Crusoe, one of the 
most remarkable characters in fiction, perhaps 
the most remarkable. De Foe is distinctly and 
definitely a religious man. He not only pre- 



106 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



tends to be religious, he is religious. He says 
distinctly that the whole story describes his 
own inner religious experience. Robinson Cru- 
soe is distinctly a religious man. Now, a reli- 
gious writer like De Foe, creating a religious hero 

like Robinson, 
makes of him 
a Brazilian 
slave-trader 
who is ship- 
wrecked in a 
slave-ship 
which he had 
himself fitted 
out to bring a 
cargo of slaves 
from Africa to 
Brazil. This 
hero l)ecomes 
the most popu- 
lar hero in Eng- 
lish romance for a century, perhaps I might say 
for two. Yet, in all the literary criticism of the 
book for a century, I think no one has found one 
word among the moralists of England which 
finds the least fault with Robinson on account 
of his active participation in the slave-trade. It 




ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 107 

seems to me that this absolute silence on such a 
})oint shows the utter indifference of the public 
mind of England in the matter.^ 

But lifty years after Sewall's death, the critical 
and famous trial which gave to the slave Somer- 
sett his freedom in England testifies to the fun- 
damental existence of the principle of freedom, 
concealed perhaps because it was fundamental 
and therefore underground. Cowper took up 
the famous decision, and his two lines, 

" Slaves cannot breathe in P^ngland ; if their hmgs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free," 

(in 1781) are better known than Lord Mansfield's 
decision on which they were founded. Really 
Holt's decision is much earlier. Cowper took 
these words, not from Mansfield, but from Mr. 
Hargrave's argument. Hargrave said that " the 

^ For the benefit of my friends in that admirable historical 
circle which is doing such good work in North Carolina I write 
this line to say that one. at least of Daniel De Foe's sons went to 
North Carolina, settled and died tliere. Daniel De Foe's own 
knowledge <d life in America is indicated in his capital novel 
" Colonel Jack," of which the scene is laid on the site of Wash- 
ington and Georgetown, a novel now read by no one excepting 
myself and three intimate friends. In this capital novel, I say 
(imitating Robhison Crusoe's method) there is enough to show 
that he knew all about iilanting on our side of the water. This 
suggests to our North Carolina friends that they ought to look 
up the De Foe plantation and perha})S find some descendants, 
personal or sjiiritual — Devaux perhaps? or Walter Page perhaps ? 



108 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

air of England is deemed too pnre for slaves to 
breathe in." 

It was not the first time, nor the last, when 
the great lawyers appeared as the apostles of 
liberty. Possibly nnder other conditions Lord 
Mansfield's decision might have been pressed in 
the North American colonies, by Avay of follow- 
ing up the victory of two years before. Nobody 
even dreamed of carrying the Mansfield decision 
to the West Indies, where the islands were not 
colonies, but, as we say, dependencies. And 
1772 was not a very favorable time for assert- 
ing the value of a decision made in an English 
law court, as governing the North American 
colonies. 

We have not the young John Lowell's brief in 
the case of CiEsar Hendrick against his master, 
but the Court Record shows that in 1773, John 
Lowell of Newbnryport was counsel for Cc\?sar 
Hendrick who claimed under the charter, and 
perhaps under Holt's decision, his freedom. 
They won their case. And I hope that some 
time the County Courts will engrave upon their 
seals the broken links of a useless chain, with 
the motto, Sic seiyiiJer tyrannis. This same John 
Lowell and the men around him, introduced in 
the Bill of Rights of Massachusetts the passage 



ABOLITION or SLAVERY 109 

which they found in tlie Bill of Rights in Yir- 
gmia in 1776, '' all men are born free and equal." 
He is the man whom I call " the emancipator," 
— the grandfather of the poet of freedom. 

There had been in 1769, two years before the 
famous Somersett decision, a suit brought by a 
negro in oin^ Massachusetts courts which came to 
trial in 1770. The negroes contributed money 
themselves for the expenses of the case. It is 
the case James vs. Lechmere, which terminated 
favorably for them. The blacks pleaded that 
the Royal Charter declared that all persons born 
or residing in the province were as free as the 
King's subjects in (Ireat Britain. 

As soon as the Constitution of the new 
State and the Bill of Rights were in force, a 
negro named Quork Walker, Avith men as dis- 
tinguished as Caleb Strong and Levi Lincoln 
(the elder) as his counsel, sued his master for as- 
sault " with the handle of a whip," and the repli- 
cation states that he was a freeman and not a 
slave. A careful trial gave him his fi-eedom. 
His counsel did not satisfy themselves with urg- 
ing the Bill of Rights. Judge Washburn prints 
much of their brief, with its constant references 
to the riu-hts of man. It is interesting to see 
that before Cowper's lines in the " Task " could 



110 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

have been read here, this brief cites Hargrave's 
famous epigram, with a change in the language, 
" The air of America is too pure for a slave to 
breathe in." 

All this time there was a strong antislavery 
sentiment in Virginia — a sentiment certainly 
shared by some of the leaders. But I think 
that no slave there ever claimed his rights in 
Virginia under this same declaration of their Bill 
of Rights. 

One speaks with great caution, or ought to ; 
but I should say that all slavery discussion in 
the Convention which made the National Consti- 
tution was governed, to the eye at least, by 
economical considerations — that the moral ele- 
ments involved were hardly referred to. I think 
it would be safe to say that a similar indifference 
to moral principles appears in the languid dis- 
cussions of the matter already referred to, which 
you find, with some difficulty, between 1800 and 
1819. The occasional " testimonies " of some 
Quaker meeting are the great exceptions, al- 
though on the other side of the water the anti- 
slavery movement, as led by Clarkson and his 
friends, was already well under way. 

Careful readers must remember that in such 
discussions condemnation of the slave trade was 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 111 

far in advance of the condemnation of slavery. 
The United States pronounced the slave-trade 
pirac}^ in 1808, as early as the Constitution per- 
mitted such action. The precedent which made 
a slave-trader a pirate was given by the United 
States, and was followed by all the maritime 
nations. This was while the United States at 
home was using all its National powers to main- 
tain the institution of slavery. 

As early as 1772 there appears at Yale College 
the first question ever debated by the Lmonian 
Society. It was, " Is it right to enslave the 
Affricans ? " I think, by the way, that this rec- 
ord, bad spelling and all, is made by my great- 
uncle, Nathan Hale, the same who was hanged 
l)y Howe. 

At the great bi-centennial celebration at New 
Haven I asked a very bright woman why in 
New Haven, where Eli Whitney graduated, and 
where he spent most of his life, and where his 
descendants live honored to this day, nobody in 
four days of eloquence and song had one word to 
say about this graduate of the University, though 
he had by one invention revolutionized the com- 
merce of the world. She answered on the in- 
stant by asking in turn if this same Eli Whitney, 
by this same invention, had not continued Afri- 



112 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

can slavery for half a century longer than it 
would have existed had there been no cotton-gin. 
The general verdict agrees that this is so. Of 
course no one ever blamed poor Whitney. 

But w^ith the advance, which seemed miracu- 
lous, of the cotton crop of the country, slave 
lal^or was no longer devoted to plantations of 
corn, wheat, tobacco, rice, and indigo. Cotton 
became king, and the institution of slavery 
seemed j^rofitable. The moral protest of the 
Quakers, and of such idealists as Washington, 
Jefferson, and other Southern men like them, 
was of less and less avail. Almost without 
men's knowing it, the jealousy between agricul- 
tural States and commercial States became a 
conflict between the slave States and those which 
were free. 

And this will be as good a place as any to say 
that the advice of the English abolitionists from 
the time of Clarkson down to the Civil War 
probably did more hurt than good in the matter 
of emancipation in America. From the Stamp 
Act down, the American people, by and large, 
have not fancied English advice in the matter of 
their politics. They had to take it sometimes, 
but even when they " ate ci'ow they did not 
hanker for it." Thus, they had to accept the 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 113 

"Common Sense" of Tom Paine, but they never 
liked Tom Paine, and to this day his name is not 
acceptable. Paul Jones was their loyal servant, 
and won for them splendid victories. But Paul 
Jones never had his deserts at their hands, simply 
because he was a Scotchman. Gates and Lee 
were placed in service next to Washington, and 
of both those Englishmen the record was as bad 
as it could be. And so one might go on, repeat- 
ing instance after instance of an alienation 
springing out of the Revolution, sometimes to be 
justified and often unjustifiable, which for nearly 
a century made English advice very unpalatable 
to the rank and file of America. I will venture 
to say at this moment that American advice is 
just as unpalatable in England at tliis hour. 
There seems to be a certain Anglo-Saxon habit 
which makes each nation say, " If you will mind 
your business, we will mind ours. " See 1 Thess. 
iv. 11. 

The Congressional debates of 1819 and 1820 
become the first discussions of the modern type 
as to the principles which lie under slavery. I 
have already spoken of them. It was my busi- 
ness in 1854 to read, abridge, and publish again 
these debates, so far as they are preserved, and I 
like to testify as to the great ability of the dis- 

VOL. II. I 



114 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



cussion on both sides. But even then the dis- 
cussion was more on constitutional than on 
ethical questions. What had Congress a right 
to do, what had the Northern States a right 




Edmund Quincy. 



to do, in the way of prohibiting slavery in the 
Territories ? 

In a very valuable review which Mr. McMaster 
has prepared for his own history as to the prog- 
ress of antislavery sentiment and antislavery 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 115 

discussion, he gives a curious list of the diiferent 
antislavery newspapers, beginning as early as 
1817. There were three or four times as many 
different journals of such sentiment in the 
country as there were forty years after, and all 
the earlier ones were printed in slave States. 
This was precisely as there were temperance 
journals in Massachusetts whicli inveighed 
against the manufacture of rum, because we 
made rum here, while there were none in Wash- 
ington or Savannah, because they did not make 
rum there. 

" Slavery is their business, not ours." This 
was practically the motto of all political parties, 
and of the men of commerce or of affairs. A 
good story of David Henshaw and of a Virgin- 
ian friend in Norfolk, which must belong as late 
as the forties, perhaps the fifties, may as well go 
into print. Mr. Henshaw was Secretary of the 
Navy in one of the Southern Cabinets. He was 
one of the leaders of the Democratic party of 
Massachusetts ; one of the men " who kept that 
party conveniently small," so that all its leaders 
had Federal offices. Mr. Henshaw was one of 
the early railway men, a man of foresight 
enough and courage enough to know what 
modern civilization would demand. It was long 



116 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

before the war that he was in Norfolk, Virginia, 
consulting with some of the leaders there as to 
the opening up of communication westward 



THOMPSON, 

THE ABOLITIONIST. 



That iDfamous foreign seoandrel THOMPSON, will 
hold forth this aJlernooH^ at the Liberator Office, No. 
48, Washington Street. The present is a fair opportu- 
nity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson 
outt It will l>e a contest between the AlMlitionists and 
the friends of the Union. A purse of $IOO has been 
raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the 
individnal who shall first lay Tiolent hands on Thompson, 
so that he may be brought to the tar iLcttle before dark* 
Friends of the Union, be Tigilant! 

Bogionf Wednesdaiff 19 ol^eloth. 



A Pro-slavery Handbill. 

This was printed at the office of the Boston Commercial Gazette, 
under the direction of the proprietor, James L. Homer, on the 21st 
of October, 1835, and was directed against George Thompson, who 
was then causing great excitement by his eloquent addresses against 
slavery. The poster was set up and run off on a hand-press by two 
apprentices of Homer, one of whom was George C. Rand, subse- 
quently a master printer of Boston and the first printer of " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." These two boys then distributed them among the 
bar-rooms and barber-shops of the business section of the city, with 
the result that by two o'clock a raging mob of 5000 people gathered 
about the antislavery office, and shortly after laid violent hands 
upon Mr. Garrison, in the absence of Mr. Thompson, who was out 
of the city. 

from their magnificent harbor. As he rode with 
one of his Virginian friends one day, the South- 
erner said, " You abolitionists say " this or that. 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 117 

Henshaw disclaimed the word. The Democrats 
of that day kept their garments very clear from 
such stains. The Virginian laughed. " I know 
von make your distinctious. But we call you 
all abolitionists." Henshaw would not laugh. 

A Letter from Theodore Parker on the Antislaveky Enter- 
prise. Dated Sept. 10, 18.oo. 

" You are quite wrong," he said. " We are as 
fond of our ways as you are of yours. We 
manufacture cotton and wool and shoes and 
iron. We send our ships into every ocean. And 
if, to maintain slave labor, you choose to let your 
magnificent cataracts go to waste, to let your 



118 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

coal lie imburued and your iron unsmelted, to 
send your timber to us for our purposes, and 
never to build a ship in these waters, some of 
us, I assure you, are very much obliged to you." 

This was enough, and the Virginian said in 
reply, " Well ! Mr. Henshaw, pray do not think 
that we are all damned fools." 

Newport News and its magnificent ship-build- 
ing make the comment to-day on that anecdote. 

To refer once more to personal recollections, 
I had always been trained at home to absolute 
courtesy, not to say tenderness, to all such 
negroes as we saw in Boston. I should have 
been taken to task very severely had I failed at 
all in such courtesies. Yet I remember perfectly 
the indignation with which, when I was ten or 
eleven years old, I saw on a placard in the win- 
dow of the Old' Corner Bookstore in Boston the 
announcement of Mrs. Child's book called " An 
Appeal for that Class of Americans Called 
Africans." I and the boy with me were indig- 
nant that a nea:ro should be called an American 
at all. This was the first antislavery book with 
" stiff covers," as the Authors' Club would say, 
which was published in America. Years before 
this, acting I suppose under the stimulus of some 
sermon on charity, I stopped a black boy under 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 



119 



the Paddock elms in Boston, as I was going to 
school, and, to his great surprise, gave him a 
cent. In later times I have given a great many 
cents to other black people, merely on the princi- 
ple of penance, because I have no other way of 
expressing my 
regret for the 
conduct of my 
ancestors t o- 
ward theirs. 
But this largess 
to the black boy 
was not based on 
any such feel- 
ing. It grew 
simply from the 
tone taken in 
Eng-lish stor\- 
books, in which 
at that time, 
black boys and 
chimne}'- sweeps 

were badly mixed together, and the impression 
was given to a child of seven that black boys 
were of necessity poor. I recollect hearing bigger 
boys say that, except on "Nigger Election," black 
boys were not permitted to come farther than a 







Theodoke Parker's Grave. 



120 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

certain point on the Common. But this limita- 
tion, if it ever existed, was a mere tradition in 
my time, belonging with the myths about battles 
between North-Enders and South-Enders. 

I should say that 1833, the date of Mrs. 
Child's book, marks the beginning of the period 
in which the discussion of the question of 
slavery was taken at all seriously at the North. 
As lately as when I left college, in 1839, my 
classmate, the late William Francis Channing, 
was, I think, the only man in our class who 
would have permitted himself to be called an 
abolitionist. I should not, I am sure. I do not 
think Samuel Longfellow would. The Liberator 
had been founded on the first of January, 1831. 
But it certainly did not attract much attention 
for several years. 

A GENERATION OF MEN 

In the fifth chapter of Volume I. I have 
already given a severely condensed account of 
the debate on the Missouri Compromise. That 
was at the end of the generation after the com- 
promises of the Constitution. And, as I have 
said already, each generation has to settle these 
things anew. In that chapter I spoke of the 
disgraceful omission by Mr. George Ticknor 



A GENERATION OF MEN 121 

Curtis in his life of Daniel Webster of any 
reference to Mr. Webster's presiding at the 
Boston meeting which was called in the State 
House and protested against the introduction of 
slavery in Missouri. The address to the people, 
drawn by him — now very rare — will be re- 
printed in full in Little & Brown's new edition 
of his works. 

It was three years later that Ralph Waldo 
Emerson Avrote thus of Mr. Webster, on the 
12th of November, 1822: "By dint of much 
electioneering, the good cause has succeeded, 
and we are sending our giant down among you 
false Sothrons. We are proudly anticipating 
the triumph of the Northern interest to be 
gained or to be achieved by Mr. Webster. . . . 
I think Mr. Wel^ster had about two-thirds of 
the whole number of votes." Observe that 
Emerson had graduated in 1821. It is perhaps 
worth while to note a few of what I like to 
call the broken lights of the time, which show 
how strong was the feeling already existing. 

There was a great fire in Savannah. Its gov- 
ernment implored relief. Among other cities. 
New York remitted eleven thousand dollars. In 
sending the money tlie New York ])eople asked 
that it might be distributed among the poorer 



122 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

citizens of Savannah, and added the condition, 
" withont distinction of color." These unfortu- 
nate words sealed its fate; the hot blood of 
Savannah boiled, and, by a vote of the Council, 
the insult was met by sending back the money 
with a short, impertinent letter. 

A Philadelphia insurance company, when asked 
at what rate it would insure some Southern 
property, answered that its directors had con- 
cluded that they would not take any more risks 
south of the Mason and Dixon line. I am afraid 
that in this generation I must tell our younger 
readers that Mason and Dixon's line is the line 
which separates Maryland, a Southern State, 
and Pennsylvania, a Northern State. 

In the June number of the Ncyrth American 
Revieiv of 1820 was a paper by Judge Lemuel 
Shaw, afterward Chief Justice of Massachusetts, 
in defence of the "Restriction." Judge Story 
printed a charge on the slave-trade in the 
midst of the discussion. Indeed the antislavery 
feeling of the North asserted itself in a hundred 
ways. 

I cannot help wishing that somebody would at 
this late date reprint what is left of the discus- 
sions in the Senate and the House on the funda- 
mental question. To tell the whole truth, I had 



A GENERATION OF MEN 123 

meant in this chapter to print a good many 
mementos of it. But space is space, and a few 
lines must be all. 

Take these epigrams as illustrations of what 
was said on each side. Jolin Randolph cried, in 
the House, '' God has given us Missouri, and the 
devil cannot take it from us." 

Lowrie, of Pennsylvania, in the House said, 
" If the alternative be the dissolution of this 
Union or the extension of slavery over the whole 
western country, I choose the former." 

Harrison Gray Otis's speech is worth reading 
to-day. '" The gentleman talks of sparks ignited. 
I can tell liim that when the pine forests of 
Maine are lighted they bmii with quite as fierce 
a flame as the spire-grass of Missouri." 

The great debate, tlie '• Misery Debate," as it 
was called in joke sometimes, ended in what men 
still call " Mr. Clay's first Compromise." Very 
little of his great speech is preserved. This pas- 
sage is one of those which remain : " I appeal to 
Pennsylvania, the unambitious Pennsylvania, the 
keystone of the Federal arch, whether she will 
concur in a measure calculated to disturb the 
peace of this Union." 

The formation of the Colonization Society in 
1817 is a curious i-atlier tlian an important sign 



124 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of the times. In the near future the colony of 
Liberia may yet prove important in the progress 
of the development of Africa. But at the time 
when the Society was formed even its enthusi- 
astic friends did not pretend that it would re- 
move the question of slavery from American 
politics. After Mr. McMaster's careful and full 
discussions of its early operations, I should not 
venture to throw in any side-lights. It is enough 
here to say that the officers of the Society gave, 
for its reason for being, the degradation of the 
free people of color. They printed statistics 
which, as I believe, were awfully untrue^ as to 
the amount of crime, disease, and other wretched- 
ness among them. They declared that such 
degradation resulted from their anomalous posi- 
tion, that they were neither fish nor fowl, because 
they were neither slaves nor white men, and 
that it was but fair to them to place them in a 
new country where they could show what their 
race was fit for. Their earliest reports disclaim 
any effort to increase the number of emancipated 
slaves. 

Even before this time James Madison had 
altered the provision of his will by which he had 

1 From a curious and important error, which appears in all 
the early censuses. 



A GENERATION OF MEN 125 

determined that his slaves should be freed after 
Mrs. Madison's death. 

What is certain is that, from the time of the 
Missouri Compromise forward, the antislavery 
feeling of Virginia, or of the leaders of Vu'ginia, 
declined, and that the discussion of the subject 
in the Northern States took on more and more 
the character of a moral question. In propor- 
tion as cotton became king and the cotton crop 
of the Gulf States increased from year to year, 
the change came over Virginia which made her a 
slave-breeding State. The price of slaves became 
higher and higher as this new market opened for 
them, and the wish for emancipation, which had 
appeared everywhere in the Virginian history, 
was checked by the new economic conditions. 
Now observe that Garrison had started the 
Liberator in Baltimore, January 1, 1831. 

I like to copy from Mr.. Buell's admirable Life 
of Paul Jones the letter which that hero, now 
almost forgotten, wrote to his Virginia agents 
about his plantation in 1786 : — 

'' Beyond all these considerations, gentlemen, 
there is another, and to my way of thinking, 
far weightier reason dissuading me from the 
meditation of resuming the life of a Virginia 
Farmer. To do that, with prospect of success 



126 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

under existing conditions, would require me to 
make myself the beneficiary of slave ' labor,' to 
be again a holder of property in human flesh and 
blood. I occupied that attitude once, — but it 
was at a time when my sensibilities on that score 
had not been sharpened as they have been since. 

'' Lord Dunsmore [Governor of Virginia] re- 
lieved me, sadly and violently, but no less effectu- 
ally, of the main ]3art of my offending as an owner 
of human slaves. You are aware that, early in 
1776, I set free my only two remaining boys, 
Cato and Scipio, at Providence, R.I. At this 
writing I must say that I have struggled so 
long and desperately for the cause of human 
growth and the rights of man at large, that I 
can no longer bring myself to a distinction 
based on color or misfortune as between men, 
whom, as the Good Book says, ' God hath 
created in His own image.' " 

There is not any more interesting index of 
this change than may be observed in the mem- 
oirs of John Quincy Adams. He had reason 
enough to dislike Southern politics and to dis- 
trust Southern politicians. But I think it is 
not until after the Missouri Compromise that 
his papers, his letters, or his speeches indicate 
his special aversion to slavery. Indeed, in 



A GENERATION OF MEN 127 

that magnificent career of his in Congress, after 
he was President, he appears in defence of the 
right of petition as claimed by antislavery men 
before he takes very eager ground in the sup- 
port of their positions. 

The truth is that as the country gradually 
became a Nation and ceased to be a Confed- 
eracy, it became more and more clear that it 
could not be a nation of freedom and a nation 
of slavery at the same time. This is completely 
stated in Abraham Lincoln's epigram of the 
time. You cannot have eight republics allied 
with five oligarchies, to repeat Gouverneur 
Morris's epigram. But your Nation must be 
one thing or another. Eight houses may be 
divided against five houses, but one house 
divided against itself cannot stand. I remem- 
ber that as early as 1836, when I was in college 
and was discussing this matter with my dear 
friend Donaldson, from Maryland, I said to 
him that the whole system would come to an 
end under commercial laws ; that as the rail- 
ways opened up from South to North, the 
slaves would run away if they wanted to. And 
neither of us, I think, conceived the possibility 
of any National legislation strong enough to 
carry them back again. 



128 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

It was, of course, easy enough to say that 
under the Constitution slavery was a local 
institution, and that every State might manage 
as it chose. This was so as long as Washington 
sjDoke of Virginia as " my country," or Pinckney 
said the same thing of Carolina. But you could 
not hold to this while you guaranteed to every 
citizen of every State the same rights as you 
gave to every citizen of your own State. And, 
for instance, the statute of South Carolina of 
the year 1823, which prohibits the arrival in 
her ports of free blacks from other States, 
under penalty of imprisonment, is just as much 
an act of nullification as any of the legislation 
of after years. 

Mr. Garrison and the other original abolitionists 
used to the utmost the privilege, which they un- 
doubtedly had, of attacking slavery as an evil in 
itself, without proposing any method of meeting 
the difficulties of the process, and without attempt- 
ing to make them less. Slavery is wrong. It 
was enough to say that. " Strike a man ? " Dr. 
Channing would put that question, and he had 
freed his conscience. Emancipate the man, and 
the future might take care of itself. But many 
years did not go by before the sensitive con- 
sciences of some abolitionists compelled them to 



A GENERATION OF MEN 129 

withdraw from actiug under a Const itutiou which 
they wanted to destroy. How could you vote, 
as a citizen, in an organization which you called 
a covenant with hell ? From this conscientious- 
ness came the inevitable division between the old 
organization and the new — a division which the 
outsiders ridiculed by classing the two factions as 
" New Ogs " and " Old Ogs " when their annual 
meetings came round. Within these organiza- 
tions, however, the members treated each other 
with a cordial catholicity, and, though they could 
not contribute to each other's treasuries, or join 
directly in each other's system of propaganda, 
they recognized fidelity to the essential privilege. 
And so soon as the Liberty party formed itself, all 
who could vote, in conscience, were generally to 
be found in its ranks. As early as 1844 the in- 
dependent vote of the Liberty party was with- 
drawn from Mr. Clay, and this lost the vote of 
New York — then, as always, the Empu-e State — 
to Mr. Clay. He was pledged to oppose the an- 
nexation of Texas. The election of Mr. Polk, his 
competitor, was thus secured. New York, as al- 
ways up to that date, voted with the South, and 
the supremacy of the South for the next sixteen 
years was secured. 

So the '-'settlement" by the Missouri question 



130 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

lasted for its generation of men. I have already 
said that the figures are curiously accurate. The 
Constitution was completed in 1787. Thirty- 
three years after, the Missouri Compromise was 
passed. Thirty-three years more, and Mr. Dixon, 
of Kentucky, introduced the amendment to the 
Nebraska Bill which repealed the Compromise 
section of March 6, 1820. This would violate 
the Compromise. 

Mr. Edward Everett — who had a very nice 
sense of the obligation of the Missouri Compro- 
mise — said to me more than once, as the war went 
on, that the violation of it was the work of nine 
men. I wish I had asked him who he thought 
the nine men were. I wish some cool-headed 
Southern man, at this hour, would name these 
real leaders in the secession policy. This was 
undoubtedly true — that the mere fact that a 
man owned slaves made him a member, whether 
he would or no, of an oligarchy of slaveholders 
— a small corporation, as one might call it. 
Such a syndicate, as our modern term would have 
it, moves with a certain promptness. And this 
particular syndicate until 1853 had the easy 
direction of the Democratic party. Had this 
syndicate been willing to hold on to what it had 
in the annexation of Texas, the Missouri Compro- 



A GENERATION OF MEN 131 

mise and tlie S3'stein to which it belonged would, 
according to me, have lasted nnicli longer than 
they did. But in the destruction of that barrier 
the pent-up forces of Northern indignation were 
set free, which had been gathering from the 
beginning. 



PERSONAL 



CHAPTER IV 

PERSONAL 

TEXAS, KANSAS, AXD NEBRASKA 

WITH the last lialf of the century my own 
personal recollections begin to play their 
part in these memoirs. I believe I have said 
here somewhere that I was cradled in the sheets 
of a newspaper. This is certain, that from the 
year 1834, when I was a boy of twelve, I had the 
pleasure of seeing in print in the Advertiser 
some scrap or other which my father had per- 
mitted me to translate or to write for the news- 
paper. That was his way of bringing up his 
children — to make them share in the life of the 
elders of the family, not to say of the time. If 
when I was thirteen years old lie liad told me to 
sail the Channel Fleet, I should have taken it 
for granted that I could do so, because he bade 
me ; and I should have assumed the duty as 
cheerfully as Lord John Russell would have done. 
Under this principle, when I was sixteen, I was 
reporter in the Massachusetts Legislature, with 

135 



136 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the duty, not of writing out speeches at length, 
but of abridging them and giving their tenor. 
I suppose that from that hour to this no month 
of my hfe has passed in which I have not written 
more or less for the journals of the day. In the 
high tide of 1854 and 1855 I was contributing 
the leading articles for ten papers, in New Eng- 
land and New York, on subjects which had to do 
with Kansas emigration. 

All this means that I have had more than the 
average share of personal intercourse with public 
men. 

I have already spoken of the election of 1828 
in wdiich John Quincy Adams was defeated by 
General Jackson. I was then six years old. I 
afterward met Mr. Adams, who was always very 
kind to me, when he was easily the first mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives, in the 
year 1845. From the moment he was proposed 
as a member of Congress in his owni district, 
which was as early as 1830, it was settled that 
that district would never have any member ex- 
cepting him w^hile he lived. This was the old 
Plymouth Colony District, including also some 
towns, of which Quincy was one, from the "Bay." 
Even while the distinction remained in Massachu- 
setts which separated "Cotton Whigs" from 



TEXAS, KANSAS, AND NEBRASKA 137 

"Conscience Whigs," and gave to the "Cotton 
Whigs" a majority in the State, the "Conscience 
Whigs" and their natural allies the Abolition- 
ists always sent the " Old Man Eloquent," as we 
called him, to his place. That phrase is Milton's 
when he speaks of Isocrates. Mr. Adams was 
sixty-four years old when, after he had been 
President once, he entered Congress for the second 
time. That was magnificent. 

As the North ]jet2:an to understand that the 
so-called successes of the Democratic party meant 
simply that the Northern States were the bobs in 
the tail of the Southern kite, Mr. Adams became 
more and more popular among the malcontents 
of the North. He enjoyed this popularity, which 
showed itself in some very tender ways. There 
was a fine expression of a steamboat captain on 
the Ohio, who wished to God that " Ave could 
take the^engine out of tlie old Adams and put it 
in a new hulL" Mr. Adams never spoke in Con- 
gress, even wlien the Democratic leaders there 
meant to censure him publicly, but that every 
one crowded around him to hear him. And on 
one or two critical occasions he assumed, without 
hesitation, the position which the Dean of the 
House, or its natural leader, deserved. 

This gave the more interest to tlie readiness 



138 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

with which at home he took the duties of any 
citizen of Norfolk County. I remember him in 
1847, in the simplest detail of our democratic 
life in New England, when he presided as Moder- 
ator of the Congregational Council which or- 
dained William Rounseville Alger. He was a 
lay delegate for the church in Quincy with Dr. 
Lunt in what is called the Council, in Congrega- 
tional matters, of perhaps five and twenty 
neighboring parishes. He was chosen Moderator 
of the assembly, and, in the fine Congregational 
ritual, it was his business to announce to the 
assembly that the '' Council has agreed to pro- 
ceed with the ordination" of the gentleman who 
had been chosen by the parish as its minister. 

When his son published twelve volumes of his 
father's memoirs, he printed one of the most in- 
teresting contributions to our American history. 
Son and grandsons have built an elegant fireproof 
building to contain the annals of the family. 
You enter by the lordly fireplace, you turn to the 
right, and there is the diary of the first Adams 
when he left college in 1755. You walk on and 
you walk on, turning the corners as they come, 
and at the fireplace end, after your walk, a hun- 
dred paces more or less, you have seen the 
manuscript history of America in the diaries and 



TEXAS, KANSAS, AND NEBRASKA 139 

correspondence of two Presidents and of that 
Minister to England who spoke the decisive word 
which saved England and America from a third 
war. Some day, when the secrets of to-day can 
be uncovered, some one will print in twenty 
volumes more the rest of John Quincy Adams's 
diary, which the prudence of his son Charles 
Francis Adams suppressed when those twelve 
were published. 

As I have said, perhaps I have spoken with 
all the Presidents, after the first Harrison, ex- 
cepting Buchanan, Taylor, and Cleveland. I am 
not sure about Garfield, though I had, at one 
time, some correspondence with him. 

In the winter of 1843 and 1844 I spent a good 
deal of time with my father in the State of 
Pennsylvania. He was engaged in some impor- 
tant financial arrangements in connection with 
the internal improvements of that State, and at 
that time T had a good deal to do with wire ropes 
and inclined planes and other machinery of trans- 
portation which is long since forgotten, not to 
say with Tax Laws and valuations. 

On some occasion, I forget what, when he was 
recalled to Boston, I took my holiday by going 
to Washington. A branch of tlie Baltimore and 
Ohio Railway had recently been opened. As I 



140 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

stood on Pennsylvania Avenue looking east and 
looking west, I had that curious feeling of dis- 
appointment, which I have experienced since, in 
my first view of other cities and places, because 
I was a little too well prepared for what I saw. 
The Capitol looked exactly as it did in the pic- 
tures. I knew that the avenue was wide and 
beggarly and crude; and I said to myself in a 
sort of heartsick way: "Is this what one gains 
by travel? A man might as well stay at home." 
But all this did not last. The matchless hos- 
pitality of Washington asserted itself then, when 
Washiugton was a little Virginia town dumped 
in a mud-hole, as it does now, when Washington 
is one of the finest cities in the world. I do not 
remember the detail, but I do remember that 
under the protection and auspices of Judge Story, 
who had l^een a friend to me all through my 
college life, I was pleasantly housed in the 
loda:ing;-house where the Northern members of 
the Supreme Court lived. I had put myself in 
communication with Edward Webster, sou of 
Daniel Webster, who was in some sort a god- 
brother of mine, if there is any such relationship, 
for we were within a year's age of each other, 
and he had been named, as I had been* named, 
for Edward Everett. He had gone to Dart- 



TEXAS, KANSAS, AND NEBRASKA Ul 

iiioiith College, because it was his father's college, 
and I had gone to Cambridge about the same 
time, but we often met and were close friends. 
Edward carried me at once to his father's modest 
house, and I was welcomed there with the same 
hospitality as if I had still been a bo}'^ of six years 
playing in the stable of the old Webster house 
in Summer Street. Then and there 1 made my 
first acquaintance with the city of Washington. 
I went to the little Unitarian church at Washing- 
ton on the only Sunday which I spent there. This 
chm'ch was almost a historical edifice, havina; 
been l)uilt in the early days of the Unitarian con- 
troversy, as we call it, l)y an accomplished circle 
of English gentlemen who lived in Washington 
then. They represented historically Priestley's 
view of the Unitarian revival and the view of 
the Eny:lishmen who surrounded him, as nothino: 
which I had read or seen in Boston did. 

So it chanced that as I went into the church 
on Sunday morning George James Abbot met 
me and took me into his seat. He was after- 
ward one of my most intimate and personal 
friends, and it is with special pleasui-e that I write 
these words about one of the men who was ready 
to help the world forward in any way, and who 
was a distinguished agent in helpuig it forward, 



142 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

though, his name scarcely ever appears in the 
newspapers. Abbot had been four years before 
me in college, and he knew me by sight ; for in 
fact, he entered at the Cambridge Divinity School, 
meaning to follow the profession of his father, 
who had recently died. Abbot knew that I had 
been preparing myself for a minister's life, and 
asked me at once if in the autumn of that 
year I would not come and preach in Washing- 
ton. He was one of the Standing Committee 
of the Unitarian church. This incident, or ac- 
cident, as you may choose to call it, opened up 
an acquaintance with the city of Washington 
which has lasted from that day to this day. I 
lived in Washington as their minister from Octo- 
ber 1, 1844, to the 3d of March, 1845. They 
asked me to remain and be their permanent 
minister, but I declined. I was very much 
tempted by the proposal, but I did not accept 
it. I knew perfectly well that there was to be 
a gulf of fire between the North and the South 
before things went much further ; and I really 
distrusted my own capacity at the age of twenty- 
three to build a bridge which should take us 
over. But as I write, I suppose that in fifty- 
six years since then, I have gone to Washington 
fifty-six times, to preach to this congregation. 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 143 

THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 

That winter of 1844-1845 was one whicb we 
then thought a crisis winter, and 1 have thought so 
from that time to this. John Tyler was Presi- 
dent. To say nothing worse of him, he was the 
weakest man, excepting Franklin Pierce, who 
was ever President, and he was the most ignorant 
man of the duties of the Presidency, with per- 
haps another exception. The Whigs had put 
hmi on their ticket with Governor William 
Henry Harrison, by way of showing that they 
were not a Northern party, as they were. They 
had had triumphant success. They had sw^ept 
from its throne the old coalition between the 
slaveholding States and the slums of New York 
City, and they enjoyed their triumph — for one 
month. Harrison then died, and the great, suc- 
cessful Whig party had on its hands John Tyler. 
He was what the politicians call a " sorehead," 
who outwent in his devotion to the slaveholdins: 
interest anything which tlie defeated Mr. Van 
Buren would have done, " the Northern man 
with Southern principles." 

To come down to the year 1844. Mr. Tyler 
had made a Cabinet which men used to call " a 
Corporal's Guard," because it was supposed to 



144 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

have no party behind it. But when the project 
for the annexation of Texas came up, the most 
of the old Democratic party ralUed to his support. 
The whole slaveholding interest was, as I 
have already said, from first to last, a solid cor- 
poration which moved instinctively as one body. 
The nation of Texas had issued bonds which were 
owned by a handful of enterprising and very 
skilful operators, and by the time Congress met 
in December, 1844, the plans for the annexation 
of Texas were well forward and had the complete 
approval of President Tyler and his Cabinet. In 
a review of the history of the intrigue, addressed 
to his constituents in 1842, Mr. Adams said that 
in a debate in 1837 on the subject he "disclosed 
the whole system of duplicity and perfidy toward 
Mexico which had marked the Jackson Adminis- 
tration from its commencement to its close. It 
silenced the clamors for the annexation of Texas 
to this Union for three years till the catastrophe 
of the Van Buren Administration. The people 
of the free States were lulled into the belief that 
the whole project was abandoned and that they 
should hear no more of slave-trade cravings for 
the annexation of Texas. Had Harrison lived 
tliey would have heard no more of them to this 
day, but no sooner was John Tyler installed in 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 145 

the President's house than nullification and 
Texas and war with Mexico rose again upon 
the surface, w^ith eye steadily fixed upon the 
polar star of Southern slave-dealing supremacy 
in the Government of the Union." 

For myself I have always to this time counted 
it a piece of great good fortune of my own that 
I spent this winter of 1844-1845 in Washington. 
I arrived there early in October. I remained 
there until the 3d of March, 1845, the day be- 
fore Mr. Polk's inauguration. I remember that 
I was too angry to be willing to stay to see his 
inauguration on the 4th. But Mr. Alexander 
Hill Everett took me to call upon Mr. Polk, 
I think at the National Hotel, so that I heard 
them in frank conversation with each other. 
In the same way I had seen Mr. Calhoun and 
heard them talk. Mr. Calhoun was, at this 
period, Mr. Tyler's Secretary of State. 

If I give anywhere any account of the per- 
sonal imj)ression Mr. Tyler made on me, it must 
be on another page. On this page I A\isli I 
could make the reader see what the struggle 
of that winter was as it appeared to unsophisti- 
cated Northern eyes. 

Physically, Texas is a paradise, and always 
has been, since its w^ritten history began. I 

VOL. II. L 



146 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

have never been in southern Mexico, but I think 
I know something of Mexico ; and I have seen 
every one of our States between New Brunswick 
and the Rio Grande. I am quite sure that 
Texas, as large a region as France, has by far 
the finest natural advantages of any region 
between Labrador and the Isthmus of Panama. 
It seems therefore a little queer that while 
Mexico got itself well settled by Europeans, 
even in Cortes' s times, and while there were 
Frenchmen in Canada and Englishmen in Vir- 
ginia as early as Jamestown, there were no Span- 
ish settlements of wider range than military 
posts in the whole of Texas. This is the more 
queer because you find passages which show that 
intelligent people knew how fine a country it 
was. Thus, old Judge Sewall, two hundred 
years ago, has one of his fine weird visions in 
which he suggests that the INew Jerusalem will 
be established there. 

I suppose the truth to be that the Spanish 
Governors of Mexico were afraid of English and 
American aggression on the north, and meant to 
keep a desert between the Mississippi and their 
silver mines. Under that policy they murdered 
Philip Nolan in 1801 ; kept all his companions 
prisoners until they died, except Blackburn, 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS U7 

whom they hanged ; and they arrested Captain 
Pike and his party when they had strayed into 
the valley of the Rio Grande in 1807. The idea 
of a dividing zone which should be virtually 
a desert between rival nations was a familiar 
notion to the old-fashioned statesman. Some- 
how or other it happened in Burr's time, and 
for twenty years after, that what people would 
call a Texas fever got hold of the adventurous 
pioneer population of the Southwest ; and early 
in the twenties there appear the names of such 
men as Stephen Austin, Samuel Houston, and, 
later down, of David Crockett, who had deter- 
mined to break in on this hedged-up paradise. 
As the Mexican States broke oft" from Spain and 
became republics, it became more and more easy 
to obtain grants of land of one sort and another. 
The old Spanish Government had almost always 
refused such grants, but the revolutionists were 
much more easy. 

In I800 the settlers on such grants gained 
confidence enough in their own nvmiber and in 
hope of enlarging those numbers to make a 
constitution for themselves, and in 1836, after 
various vicissitudes, to declare their indepen- 
dence. This was followed, almost of course, by 
an invasion of Mexican troops ; and it is to be 



148 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

observed, from tlie experience of the next five 
and twenty years, that the Mexican soldier is an 
admirable soldier. They crushed at first the 
fig;htinar force of Texas. That horrible massacre 
of the Alamo took place, black among the 
blackest incidents even of Spanish folly and 
cruelty, and was followed by the inevitable 
retaliation of the battle of San Jacinto. In 
this fight the Mexican army was annihilated 
in half an hour by the Texans, and, fortunately 
for them. General Santa Anna, its commander, 
the President of Mexico, was taken prisoner. 
The Texan army which had triumphed was 
made up of men whose comrades had been bru- 
tally murdered after the capture of Alamo. It 
was said at the time that when the poor Mexi- 
can soldiers, who had been surprised in their 
afternoon siesta, found themselves the prisoners 
of the Texans they wonld sob out " Me no 
Alamo," meaning that they were not concerned 
in the brutal massacre. This was in the year 
1836. From that moment the independence of 
Texas seemed possible. The United States Gov- 
ernment had attempted to purchase the province 
under every Administration after Monroe's. In- 
deed, the affectation had been kept up that the 
Province of Texas, between the Sabine and the 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 149 

Rio del Norte, belonged to the Provinee of Loui- 
siana, and that our line should liave been drawn 
at the Del Norte, and not at the Sabine. 

Now that Texas was established as an inde- 
pendent State, with the flag of the " Lone Star," 
a steady purpose showed itself on the part of 
its rulers to -annex themselves to the United 
States. The Southern leaders, including the 
President, John Tyler, saw of course the im- 
mense advantage that so magnificent a province 
would give to them. The slave-holding inter- 
est could not but lend itself to the annexation 
of this province to the United States, without 
reserve. Besides this, alas ! there were the 
men who owned the bonds of the "Lone Star" 
State, which had been hardly wortli the paper 
they Avere written on. But if Texas became a 
part of the United States these bonds would be 
enlarged immensely in value. It was said at 
the time, and I believe, that Avaverers who had 
to be conciliated to the Southern cause accepted 
these bonds as part paj^ment for their votes. 

Tlie annexation of Texas then became the 
crucial test which should show how far the 
Northern States and the Western States did or 
did not care for slavery in the abstract. A man 
might say, with a perfectly good conscience, that 



150 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

South Carolina could regulate her own laws 
with regard to slavery, wdiile he could not say, 
with a good conscience, that slavery should 
exist in Texas, or that the United States should 
annex a slave-holding region. On this issue 
Mr. Polk had been chosen President, as repre- 
senting the South and the Southern interests. 
Mr. Clay had been rejected because the anti- 
slavery men of New York did not believe that 
he was sound as to the extension of slavery. 
The whole session of Congress of the winter of 
1844-1845 was practically given to the solution 
of this question. Democratic States like New 
Hampshire turned right round on the question 
of freedom in Texas. 

In that session Mr. Adams and with him 
the whole North triumphed, when in December 
the House received petitions for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columljia, which it had 
steadily refused to do before. But as the month 
of March opened, it proved that in the Texas 
business the South was victorious. Up to the 
first day of March, we Northern men had sup- 
posed that the Senate would reject what was 
called the " joint resolution," which had passed 
the House, which provided for the annexation. 
The form of the joint resolution had been taken 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS 151 

because it was known that no treaty for annex- 
aticHi could go through the Senate. We sup- 
posed that we had a majority of one in the 
Senate. On all this history the wise reader will 
study Mr. Shepard's Life of Van Buren. 

On the morning of the 2d of March I called 
on Mr. Rufus Clioate at the Senate Chamber, 
and called him out from his seat. 

" I am going to Boston, Mr. Choate. What 
shall 1 tell my father ? " 

" Tell him we are beaten, Mr. Hale — we are 
beaten, magno praelio victi sumiis. We have been 
beaten in a great battle." 

The truth, was, as I suppose, that President 
Tyler had told Senator Merrick — a weak Senator 
from Maryland — that if he would vote for an- 
nexation, his son should be made Judge in the 
District Court of Columbia. Such was, at least, 
the scandal of the time. The son was made 
Judge of that Court, receiving a position which 
he held until his death, and the father who liad 
been chosen as a Whig, voted for annexation. 

For myself, I went back to Boston most eager 
to carry out what I thought to be the true policy 
of the Northern States. I have never changed 
my opinion. The wliole North was angry with 
what seemed a trick which had been played upon 



152 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

it. This same North was sending westward 
thousands of emigrants every year ; and here was 
this magnificent province lying empty. How cer- 
tain it is that if the wave of free emigration could 
have been turned into Texas then, evils untold of 
would have been prevented. On the other hand, 
I am afraid it is as certain that human slavery 
would not have been abolished in the older States 
for another generation. 

But my own duty seemed to me clear enough. 
I gave my first days after I returned to Boston to 
writing an eager appeal for the immediate settle- 
ment of Texas from the Northern States. " How 
to Conquer Texas before Texas Conquers Us, " this 
was the title of my pamphlet. I printed it at 
my own cost, and I am yet to meet with the first 
person, outside the circle of my immediate friends, 
who ever read those sixteen pages. No, I must ex- 
cept the proof-reader of that edition and the proof- 
reader of the eighth volume of my standard edition, 
in which I reprinted it fifty-six years afterward. 

I was ready to go myself in any capacity. I 
had fancied, in the innocence of twenty-three 
years of age, that we could arrest attention to such 
a plan — that the men with money would con- 
tribute money and that the men of courage would 
ally themselves together ; and even, as certain 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 153 

men went from Leyden to Massachusetts Bay in 
1620, a body of us would go to Texas in 1845. 
But no, mine was a voice crying in the wilderness. 
No man went or proposed to go. 

All the same, I like to say now that the solu- 
tion proposed was well founded on the social con- 
ditions of the middle of the century. 

THE NEBRASKA BILL 

When, nine years afterward, in the beginning 
of the year 1854, with a sublime audacity, won 
by success, the Southern leaders determined to 
overthrow the Missouri Compromise, the same 
opportunity for the direction of free emigration 
presented itself to another man in Massachusetts 
as the solution to be attempted then. 

The " Nel)raska Bill," still so called in con- 
versation at tlie North, though it was for many 
years the law of the land, Avas introduced in 
the Senate. It violated the promises of the 
Missomi Compromise by throwing open the ter- 
ritory west of Arkansas and Missouri and Iowa 
to the institution of slavery. The North was 
on fire at once at a violation so disgraceful of 
a compact which had been loyally respected for 
thirty-four years. xVnd Eli Tliayer, a school- 



154 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

master of Worcester, Massachusetts, called on 
the Legislature to organize the Massachusetts 
Emigrant Aid Company. He was a member 
of the Legislature for the city of Worcester. 
It was not a plan of an old antislavery war- 
horse. It was a plan which proposed to meet 
the South on its own terms, familiarly known as 
" squatter sovereignty." It authorized a capi- 
tal of five million dollars in establishing; settle- 
ments at the West. The charter was rushed 
through both Houses of the Legislature at once, 
and was signed by Governor Washburn on the 
26th day of April, 1854. This was a month 
before the Nebraska Bill was signed by Franklin 
Pierce, then President. On the 4th of May the 
petitioners accepted the charter. Massachusetts 
picked up the gauntlet, it has been said, before 
it was thrown down. 

In point of fact, the friends of the movement 
acted under a quiet, private organization through 
the whole of the year 1854, and a more valuable 
working charter was obtained for the New Eng- 
land Emigrant Aid Company in the next winter. 
That company still exists. Before May, 1855, 
thirty thousand dollars were subscribed and 
spent. Eventually, tlie company raised and 
spent one hundred and thirty-six thousand dol- 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 155 

lars. The first company of emigrants went 
under the direction of its executive in August 
of 1854. Dr. Charles Robinson, who afterward 
became Governor of Kansas, was the leader. 

When this New Eni>-land Emio;rant Aid Com- 
pany organized, the largest subscriber was John 
Carter Brown, a millionnaire merchant of Provi- 
dence. He was chosen the first President of the 
new organization. 

Mr. Eli Thayer was a near neighbor of mine 
in Worcester, and as soon as I knew of his 
prompt and wise movement I went over to see 
him, showed him my Texas pamphlet, and told 
liim I was ready to take hold anywhere. He 
was very glad to have a man Friday so near at 
hand. There was enough for all of us to do. 
We called meetings in all available places, and 
went to speak or sent speakers wherever we 
were called for. Colonies formed themselves in all 
the larger towns of New England, and before 
tlie end of 18-')') we had sent out four or five 
thousand settlers into Kansas. It is fair to say 
that every man in this company went for the 
purpose of making Kansas a free State and to 
give a like privilege to all other States. No 
man went with the primary purpose of enrich- 
ing: himself or his familv. Wliat followed was 



156 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

that Kansas has always been a State of idealists. 
When the Civil War, so called, came for the 
whole Nation, Kansas, which had tasted war for 
six years already, furnished a larger proportion 
of soldiers to the Union army than any other 
State did. 

The books of the Emigrant Aid Companies 
show that the Central Company spent in the 
year 1854 $23,623.73. Before the spring of 
the next year the expenditure had been $96,- 
956.01. In 1862 the company sold all its 
property in Kansas. It had then raised and 
expended $136,000. It retained its claim on 
the General Government for destroying by mili- 
tary force the hotel at Lawrence. For this 
investment no subscriber ever received any re- 
turn except in the success of the enterprise in 
its great object, the freedom of that western 
empire. 

Local societies were formed in various sec- 
tions — working in their own fashion. Mr. 
Thayer arranged for a meeting in the city of 
New York among other places. It was not large, 
but it was enthusiastic. Among other people 
present was the late William Maxwell Evarts, 
afterward Secretary of State, then a lawyer of 
good prospects in the city, but not so well known 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 157 

as afterward. Mr. Evarts made a speech in 
wliicli he said that lie supposed he was worth 
four thousand dollars, and he subscribed one 
thousand of it to the new enterprise. 

Most fortunately for the country the Southern 
oligarchy and their coadjutors in Missouri took 
the alarm more seriously than they needed to 
have done. Mr. Thayer had boldly named five 
million dollars as the capital for his new com- 
pany. While we were doing our best to bring 
together the twenty thousand dollars which we 
spent in 1854, every paper in Missouri and 
farther South was announcing that we had five 
millions at our command. This announcement 
answered our purpose almost as well as if it had 
been true. And I think that no single cause 
stimulated the Western emigration into Kansas 
more than the announcement and belief that 
rich New England capitalists were investing five 
million dollars there. 

The plan of Mr. Thayer was very simple, and 
it is really a pity that it has not been carried 
out, even in some of its details, to the present 
day. I am fond of saying, and I believe, that it 
was the beginning of " personally conducted " 
parties, such as the Cooks take over the world 
to-day. We would announce at our office that, 



158 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

say, on the 3d of August we should send a 
company to Kansas. We corresponded with the 
railway companies to know which would give us 
the cheapest terms. We peddled through tickets 
to the people who came to us at the wholesale 
price. Then we appointed a competent person 
to take charge of the party. In this way men 
who went forward with the first parties could 
send their women or even their little children 
in subsequent parties, without coming back to 
take them over the route. It was one of the 
jokes of the time that when one of Frank 
Pierce's pro-slavery Governors was sent out he 
and his secretaries boug-ht their tickets of one 
of our agents, so that we '' personally conducted " 
them. If this w^ere true, and I think it was, 
we had no right to complain. 

We never gave a penny to a settler unless he 
was engaged to do work for us. And the 
people who said that we took out paupers did 
not know how many substantial men and women 
were eager to go into Kansas. 

We offered a prize for the best marching song 
for emigrants. Miss Larcom won the prize, and 
there is a pretty story about a body of her 
young friends who found out that she had won 
it before she knew it herself, and sang it under 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 159 

her window in tlie morning. Whittier wrote 
for us a capital marching song or " song of 
degrees " : — 

" We cross the prairie, as of old 
Our fathers crossed the sea, 
To make the West, as they the East, 
The homestead of the free." 

When one of these companies came to the 
new territory, our business with the indi- 
viduals of whom it was composed was at an 
end. But, naturally, people who had started 
out together liked to keep together, and such 
people would take up their lands together under 
the Homestead Act. 

Wherever agents could, they estabhshed a 
steam engine for cutting lumber. In Lawrence 
we assisted Dr. George N. Brown, who established 
a printing-press at which the Herald of Freedom 
was printed. Eventually, we established presses 
in some other towns. I i-emeuiber that the hand- 
bills which we circulated for calling meetings, 
at some of which I spoke, were headed " Saw- 
mills and Liberty." The theory which we were 
impressing was that towns were the bulwarks 
of freedom ; that if people would help the set- 
tlers by establishing their sawmills, the}- would 
form so many central points where freedom 



160 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

would gather; and all this proved precisely 
true. 

The movement became so extensive that in 
the United States Senate a careful report was 
made vilifying it in the worst style of the arro- 
gance of the Southern leaders of that day. In 
an immense collection of letters at that time, 
I find two or three from Charles Sumner which 
are worth printing : — 

" Washington, 1st March, '56. 

" My dear Hale : I wish I could have the 
advantage of direct conversation with you for 
a brief hour on Kansas. 

" It is clear that this Congress will do nothing 
for the benefit of Kansas. In the House we 
are weak ; in the Senate powerless. This 
Know-Nothing shadow has demoralized North- 
ern Representatives. In the Senate, the small 
squad of Republicans constitute the only reliable 
friends. Nothing can be expected from Cass or 
Douglas. The latter in executive session on 
Sherman's case expressed great indignation with 
him for condescending to make a treaty with 
rebels at Lawrence. . 

" To what point, then, should we address our- 
selves ? The first question will be on Reeder's 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 



IGl 



case. This belongs exclusively to the House, 
l)ut the facts evolved there will throw light on 
the whole subject. 

'' Then comes the application for admission into 




From ail eiiijraviiig by Augustus Rohiii. 

the Union. Here is a difficulty arising (1) from 
the small population at the time the Constitu- 
tion was adopted, and (2) from the slender sup- 



162 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

port it received at the polls, owing doubtless to 
the invasion then proceeding. 

" How shall these matters be dealt with ? 
Pray let me have your counsels. 

" Of course the pretended Legislature and its 
acts must be exposed as invalid. But what 
next ? Clearly, there must be a Government 
there ; and the promptest way of getting it is 
by the recognition of the new Constitution. 
But this will be exposed as lacking what will 
be called entirety. 

^' I know your interest in the question, and 

therefore make no apology for this hasty 

note. 

" Ever sincerely yours, 

" Charles Sumnee." 

"Senate Chamber, 13th March, '56. 

" My dear Hale : . . . You will read Douglas's 
elaborate assault on the Emigrant Aid Company. 
Allow me suggest to you to have the Company 
present a memorial to the Senate directly, re- 
sponsive to this assault, point by point, and 
vindicating its simple rights. On this head I 
need not give you any hints. 

" The memorial should be as short as is con- 
sistent with a complete statement of the case ; 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 163 

but it should bo a docuuieut that will make 
the position of the Company understood by the 
country. 

" The whole atrocity in Kansas is now vindi- 
cated as a National counter-movement to the 
Emigrant Aid Company, and your Company is 
gibbeted before the country as a criminal. 

" I venture to sus-gest that this be attended to 
at once. But I leave it all to your discretion. 
" Ever faithfully yours, 

"Charles Sumner." 

" P.S. — To me this assault is quite natural, 
for I have long known that the Slave Power 
sticks at nothing ! " 

" Senate Chamber, Monday. 

" Dear Hale : If you send a memorial, let it 
be addressed to the Senate and House, and sent 
on in duplicate, one copy for the Senate, and the 
other for the House. 

" I write you because I know you. 
" Ever yours, 

" Charles Sumner." 

The last of these letters was written three 
days before Brooks struck Sumner on the head 
in the Senate Chamber and silenced his voice for 
the years which followed. On AYednesday of 



164 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the same week, the day before the Brooks assault, 
a force from Missom-i, under the direction of 
the United States Marshal, burned our hotel 
and Governor Robinson's house, destroyed Dr. 
Brown's printing-press, and jilundered several 
storehouses. Om* settlers, as law-abiding citizens, 
would not oppose the United States authority. 

To me personally it is an interesting memorial 
of the time that the next week we held a public 
meeting in Faneuil Hall in Boston, to pass judg- 
ment on the two atrocities which happened so 
close to each other, that of the 23d of May and 
that of the 24th. On that occasion, on the plat- 
form of Faneuil Hall, I introduced my father, 
who had been then for forty years the editor of 
the Daily Advertiser, the leading Whig paper, 
to Henry Wilson, the United States Senator, who 
had taken the place of Edward Everett in the 
United States Senate. Here were two men, now 
wholly at one in the handling of the slavery 
question, who had never spoken to each other 
until on that platform they met together. The 
incident was a good illustration of the way in 
which the Nebraska Bill had closed up the ranks 
in the Northern opposition to slavery. For 
the Advertiser and my father represented the 
friends of Mr. Webster, and had loyally sup- 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 165 

ported him, on the ground of tlieir readmess to 
give and take what had been promised in the 
Missouri Compromise. Now they were set free. 
I had meant and wished to j)rint here some of 
the curious details of the Kansas Settlement for 
which the materials are at my hand. I am now 
the President of the Emigrant Aid Company. 
But space is space and a page is a page, so that 
I must reserve them for some other place and 
time. The first election in the Territory showed 
that armed men from Missouri meant to take its 
organization into their hands. The settlers had 
to arm tliemselves ; and at their request our 
officers made the purchase of Sharp's rifles, which 
won a place in history. At one time Henry 
Ward Beecher was nicknamed Sharp's Rifle 
Beecher, because he had contributed to the Rifle 
Fund. Here is a letter which marks the date in 
history : — 

" Sharp's Rifle Manufacturing Co., 
" Hartford, May 7, 1855. 

" Tliomas H. Wehh, Esq., Secretary of 

Neio England Emigrant Aid Company. 

" Dear Sir : Annexed find invoice of one 
hundred carbines, ammunition, etc., ordered Mr. 
Deitzler, this morning. For lialance of account, 
I have ordered on Messrs. Lee, Higginson & Co., 



166 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

thirty days from this date, $2,155.65, as directed 
by you. ... 

" Your obedient servant, 

"J. C. Palmer, 

" President.^' 

I have severely compressed the history, for 
twelve years, of the New England Emigrant Aid 
Company, in Kansas. I can wish now that that 
history might be written out more at length. 
But I cannot do it here. 

I ought, I believe, to call attention here to the 
absurd desire of some people in Kansas and out 
of it to keep out from history the names of some 
of the earlier leaders; true men who did things 
for which they ought to be honored. In myself, 
I think that the erratic enterprise of John 
Brown, a man for whom 1 have very high respect, 
was of great injury to the infant state. But in 
the wish to make him a hero, it has seemed 
desirable to crowd out of sight men who were 
in Kansas long before him. For a single in- 
stance. Governor Charles Robinson, the first Gov- 
ernor of Kansas chosen by the people, had been 
in the valley of the Kansas River as early as the 
summer of 1854, as an agent of the Emigrant Aid 
Company. Long before that time, he had crossed 
Kansas, with an overland party, to California. 



THE NEBRASKA BILL 167 

For the critical years following August, 1854, 
when it was necessary to show that the settlers 
from the North and Northwest were acting under 
United States law, Robinson showed the most ex- 
traordinary courage and wisdom. Step by step, 
under his lead, the real colonists won victory 
after victory over poor Franklin Pierce and 
James Buchanan ; and they showed to all men 
that they were on the side of law and order. It 
is absurd, not to say wicked, to try to leave such 
a man out of history. The first agents of the 
Emigrant Aid Company were Charles Robinson, 
Samuel C. Pomeroy, and Charles Branscomb. 
I do not know, and nobod}^ else knows, where 
Kansas would be to-day without them, and 
without Eli Thayer, who sent them. Robinson 
was a settler in Kansas more than a year before 
John Brown. 



THE WAR 



CHAPTER V 

THE WAR 

ONE TO MAKE READY 

THERE has been a great temptation to pre- 
pare for this part of these memoirs a 
severely condensed history of the Civil War. 
For eighteen months I had such a plan in mind, 
and it was with regret that I abandoned it. 
But I have abandoned it. I should like to write 
such a history. I think if 1 had ten years of 
life before me, with nothing else to do, I would 
do it. But I will not do it here. 

No ! The reader ought to understand, by 
this time, that he is looking at the century 
through my key-hole. We are taking snap-shots 
together, and of our snap-shot pictures I throw 
away nineteen before I let the reader see one. 

I think there will be a certain interest in bring- 
ing together five or six separate glimpses of the 
war, which will show how a working minister 
in a Northern parish could be mixed up in it. 
I have had in mind, for nearly forty years, the 

171 



172 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



bringing together of a set of papers in cliiirch 
history and printing them in a book which 
should be called " A Church in the War." But we 
cannot print that book here at the end of a vol- 
ume. Here are, 
however, a few 
personal memo- 
randa, most of 
which date from 
the time, which 
will serve in 
their way as 
so many fore- 
ground lights for 
its history. 

Whoever writes 
the history of 
the nineteenth 
century ought to 
remember that 
after all the irri- 
tation and even 
savage rage of section against section the war 
took the North by surprise. For myself, I 
regarded the Southern declarations as part of 
a game of brag, even up to the first shot on 
Sumter. I remember that a week or two before 




ONE TO MAKE READY 173 

that happened, as I came out of church on 
what must have been the first Sunday in April, 
Wendell Phillips was passing the gateway of 
the little court^'ard. I joined him and walked 
with him, and he told me that the Carolinians 
were throwing up batteries from which to 
fire on Fort Sumter. I knew the ground and 
water, or thought I did, and I pooh-poohed, and 
said, "Batteries? What are they making them 
of — the weaves of the sea ? " and intimated tliat 
all this was the exuberance of a pretence which 
would cool down into nothing. Phillips said, 
" I hope so." But within a fortnight's time his 
hopes and my expectations were disappointed. 
Yet I was myself at that same time drilling as 
an active member of Salignac's Rifle Corps. My 
connection with this drill club began one evening 
at a meeting of a college club which had existed 
twenty years. Edward Cabot, the distinguished 
architect, who was one of the members, told us 
that he and some other young gentlemen had 
formed a drill club for the training for war. In 
my own memory this marks the moment when 
anybody thought that war was impending. For 
me, as I say, I thought the bluster of the South- 
ern States was the bragging of people used to 
playing cards, and I did not believe that things 



174 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

would come to that crisis. But all the same I 
wanted " to encourage the rest," as Voltaire said. 
I was minister of a large parish, and I wanted 
the young men of that parish to do their duty. 
I told Cabot that he might count me as a mem- 
ber. I think it was the next day I went down 
to join, and from that time until the war was 
well advanced I went down to drill daily. 
Salignac had been an officer in the French ser- 
vice and was quite master of all that we needed 
to learn from him. Amos Adams Lawrence, the 
same with whom I had worked in the coloniza- 
tion of Kansas, and who gave his name to the 
city of Lawrence there, was very much interested 
in the club. He obtained for us the use of a 
large hall owned by Mr. Gray, the hall which Mr. 
Shuman now occupies at the corner of Summer 
Street and Washington Street. There we drilled 
all winter. 

I was, therefore, well up in regimental tactics 
and well enough up in the drilling of soldiers, 
when on the fatal Sunday morning of April, 
1861, it was announced that Sumter had been 
fired on. Every young man who was worth his 
salt then wanted to fall into the ranks, and at 
Salignac's we had our hands full in drilling new 
recruits. I suppose I w^as a sergeant. Here is 



OXE TO MAKE READY 175 

a reminiscence of one of those April days : How 
often have I preached in Chicago and General 
Bayley has met me on the j^ulpit stairs and said, 
" Can you see both screws of the musket, Dr. 
Hale ? " He was a youngster in my own Sun- 
day-school who had fallen in with the rest. 
Passing behind the rank, in my duty as instructor, 
I had said to him, " Throw up yo\u' gun a little ; 
I want to see both those screws." From such a 
beginning Bayley came out a Major-General in 
1865. 

The hall in Summer Street was not large 
enough for us to parade or drill in a straight 
line. It was bent as the letter E is bent, with- 
out the cross mark in the middle. I was one of 
the taller men, my friend Dr. Williams being 
taller than I. So we were at the extreme right 
of the battalion line, and when we presented 
arms we were opposite the extreme left of the 
line, which was made up of tlie men who were 
not so talk So it was that, week in and Aveek 
out, I presented arms at any dress parade to a 
fair-haired Saxon boy, a hundred feet away, 
whose name I did not know. And it was not 
until I assisted at his funeral that I learned that 
this charming, manly face which I had seen so 
often was that of young Will Putnam, Lowell's 



176 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

nephew, who had been killed at Ball's Bluff. In 
fact, nineteen-twentieths of Salignac's Drill Corps 
took commissions in the Massachusetts reghnents 
and went to war. To this day I cannot pass 
through the central memorial hall of Sanders 
at Cambridge without tears, there are so many 
of my college companions and of my other young 
friends whose names are engraved on the tablets 
there. 

After the announcement that Sumter was 
fired, on, it would be fair to say that nobody in 
Boston thoua;lit of anvthino- but the war for 

o I/O 

four years. Everything turned on that pivot. 
In that first week, if a man asked another man 
if he could sell him a horse, the answer was, 
" You are going to the front ? The horse is 
yours." The Street Railway Company placed 
all their horses at the disposal of the Governor. 
The Massachusetts Fifth was sent to Fort Mon- 
roe directly under the advice of John Murray 
Forbes. Some one asked what w^ere the arrange- 
ments for provisioning the steamer which took 
them from Providence, and Forbes said, " I have 
provisioned her myself." 

My brother Charles, who was at that time 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, sent 
me a note one mornino- which showed me that 



ONE TO TJAKE READY 177 

lie was too sick to be anywhere l)ut in bed. T 
went over with a carriage to his bachelor quar- 
ters to bring liim to my own house. The poor 
fellow said that he had in his hands some 
arrauo-ements for vaccine which were to be sent 
to such and such regiments at the South. I 
told him that I would see to the vaccine, and 
went to the State House for that purpose. 
There was Henry Lee, well known to all Har- 
vard men as the chief marshal, for many years, 
of their processions. He was an officer in Salig- 
nac's Drill Corps, and at that moment was act- 
ing as a volunteer military aid to Governor 
Andrew. While I waited for a letter I needed, 
Lee asked me if I could not go down to Fall 
Iviver that afternoon and drill the Fall River 
companies. I was most eager to go, but I had 
in hand these vaccine arrangements, and many 
other duties of the same sort, and I made the 
"great refusal." Which story I tell because I 
think if I had o;one d(jwn to Fall Iviver and had 
my ex})erience of a drill-master's life, I should 
probably have stayed with the army until the 
war was over. Wlio knows but these might be 
the memoirs of a major-general, as Bayley's 
would be ? 

But I laid down the rule for myself that I 



178 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

would not go in person to the war until I found 
nothing to do every day at home. 

When all was over, on the 22d day of Decem- 
ber, 1865, Governor Andrew had ordered a pa- 
rade of representatives of each of the sixty-six 
Massachusetts regiments, who were to march to 
the State House and leave their smoked and 
rago-ed colors there. I noticed in the mornino; 
paper that they would pass our church. I sent 
a note to the chairman of the right committee, 
and the women opened the church ; they lighted 
their fire, and when, that morning, one or two 
thousand men marched through Union Park, hot 
coffee stood in full pails on the steps, with 
enough for every man of the command, and 
they broke raiiks and drank. In our little 
museum at church we show receipts of the 
State of Massachusetts for the flannel under- 
clothes we sent them in April, 1861. 

Of other personal reminiscences, the papers 
which make up this chapter are all that I may 
now use. The first is a letter from a gentleman, 
in an important official position in Washington, 
describing his impressions as to the army, as he 
saw it in August, after the defeat at Manassas, 
or, as we say. Bull Run. Even after thirty 
years it seems worth while to show out of 



ONE TO MAKE READY 179 

what inexperience Grant's and Meade's armies 
began. 

"Washington, August 6, 1861. 

" My Dear Sir : I have received your note 
with inclosure, of 2d inst., and am sorry we are 
not to be more closely associated. However, 
there is much to do everywhere now, and what 
is most im^^ortant is no longer m Washington. 
Yet one needs to be at Washington to see into 
what a terrible rut of inefficiencv and humbutr 
and twaddle our poor Nation has got. There 
seems no end to buncombe ; we are saturated 
with it high and low. 

" Now what is the fact about this noble, etc., 
gallant, patriotic army ? It was, in large part, 
a miserable rabble of sentimental actors and 
* foreign mercenaries.' It had no real discipline, 
only a play of it, or so much of it as was pretty. 
Its officers were knaves and fools. They had 
never read history, they knew not the simplest 
elementary conditions of war, and they never 
really expected to fight, certainly not to conduct 
fighting. The consequences of the Bull's Run^ 
affair prove this if they j)rove anything. The 
exceptions count by thousands, it is true, but the 

^ This was tliis gentleman's spelling. Bull Run is said to be 
correct. 



180 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

central fact is that the army was good for noth- 
ing. I really believe that three regiments of 
regulars well commanded could take the capital 
to-day, if there were no regulars in it. And 
how does the country behave ? The cruel, sav- 
age, senseless poltroons who took to tlie ambu- 
lances and ran over the wounded and left them 
to die of thirst, taking their water for themselves 
— the suro;eons themselves who went mad with 
fright — have you hung any of them in Boston ? 
They haven't been named yet ; nobody has tried 
to get their names. But the vermin of various 
varieties send their names to a New York news- 
paper to testify that they deserted in spite of 
the earnest request of their officers on the eve of 
the first engagement, after having played soldier 
at the public expense three months, because 
' their time was out ' and they ' wanted to see 
their families ' ! God save their children from 
living. And tlie people of New York let these 
fellows ' return to their business.' Does the his- 
tory of the w^orld exhibit traces of the existence 
of anything meaner than that ? And the men 
who did behave well — can you name them ? 
Who cares for them ? They are lost in our habit 
of buncombe. 

" We must strain every nerve to put things on 



ONE TO MAKE KEADY 181 

an entirely different footing or we are lost. The 
very idea of order, precision, punctuality, com- 
plete honesty, and exact responsibility is gener- 
ally lost among us. A man does the meanest 
things and does not know it ; the most gallant 
things, and unless the spread-eagle takes them 
up nobody else knows it. 

" The women terribly want something to do. 
Couldn't thev be Q-ot to form committees to hunt 
deserters and cowards, knavish contractors and 
speculating legislators, officers who give no care 
to their men except for parade and who throw 
away then coats in battle lest they should l)e 
known for officers, soldiers who can't be got to 
brush their coats or wash their faces or take care 
of a sick -comrade or look twice at an enemy ? 

" Until in some way or other something allied 
to discipline can be forced upon these creatures 
sent here for soldiers, all sanitary preaching is 
about useless. There ought to l)e a few Innidred 
men hung here to-morrow. Then we might ask 
commanding!: officers to o-ive orders for the 
health of their men. But orders go for nothing 
now. They are almost of as little value as 
promises. 

" Now I've told you the whole story. The 
Sanitary Commission can do nothing but poke 



182 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

sticks in at the edges. The whole kettle needs 
to be npset, and you are nearer the long end 
of the lever in Boston than you would be here. 

" As to the matter of Mr. Bishop's concern, I 
have thought much about it, and talked a good 
deal and done a little. The small Treasury 
notes are chiefly for the convenience of sol- 
diers wishing; to send to their families. I 
don't think Mr. Bishop's plan would accom- 
plish much for its cost. The best that I can 
think of would be some sort of soldiers' sav- 
ings bank, with agents j)i^eceding and follow- 
ing close upon the paymasters. This is a 
matter for solid men and financiers to think 
upon. But Dr. Howe has returned now, and 
you have the Brick Lane branch in full swing. 
I wdsh that you would have it talked about, 
and see if any scheme of the kind will bear 
beating out to details." ^ 

^ After a friend of mine, an old soldier who knows what he talks 
about, had read the letter printed above, he wrote to me thus : 
" It would be a mistake to give permanent prominence to 
this letter. He ought to have waited three years before he 
wrote such a letter." I did not attach the writer's name to the 
letter for reasons which my old friend will approve. Mj friend 
continiies in these words : — 

" It principally shows that there was one official in AVashing- 
ton who was in as bad a panic — or worse — as the army at 
Manassas. 

" Such documents are now chiefly valuable to show the state 



A'-''- 




Ulysses S. Grant. 



AS THE WAR WENT ON 185 

AS THE WAR WENT ON 

It will give a hint of the variety of the 
work of a church at home when I say that we 
had our share, tln'ough the Sanitary Commis- 
sion, in help to the hospitals of the army, the 
relief of its sick, the care of prisoners and 
refugees, and the education of freedmen. The 
first teachers who went to Port Royal to teach 
blacks were my assistant, the Rev. Charles E. 
Rich, now of California, and one of onr Sunday- 
school teachers, Mr. George N. Boynton. Col- 
onel Everett Peabody commanded the regiment 
most in advance at Shiloh. He was sure that 
Grant's army would be attacked, and gave in 
his report of that certainty. His men, ready 
for battle, met the first attack, in the gray of 
the morning, and he and most of them were 
killed in the onset. It is one of our proud 
recollections that the flannel shirts wliich were 
dyed again tliat day were made in our vestry. 

Three days afterward the young men who 

of mind of the writer. John S. Wise is right — The Battle of 
Bull Run Avas a Union success up to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 
The panic was most amazing, and humanly unaccountable. 
But those men were not cowards and poltroons. They after- 
ward fought like heroes on many a bloody field. Pardon me 
for saying that I think the name of the writer ought to have 
been attached to this letter." 



186 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

first appeared at the landing in charge of the 
hospital steamer after the horrors of the battle 
of Shiloh were two young physicians from our 
church, with supplies which we had forwarded 
— Dr. John Green, now of St. Louis, and Dr. 
Abram Wilder of Kansas. 

The editor of the first newspaper published in 
a rebel prison was one of our boys, who had vol- 
unteered the first day and had been taken pris- 
oner at Bull Run. He is a neighbor of mine, 
Mr. George E. Bates. The news of the horrors of 
the second Bull Run came on Sunday morning. 
Ladies did not go home from the church, but 
stayed in the vestries to tear bandages, to pack 
boxes and see them forwarded by the right ex- 
presses. I have given notice from the pulpit 
that hospital attendants were needed by the 
Sanitary Commission, and men have started the 
same evening on service which lasted for years. 
I once had from Richmond a private intimation 
of methods by which Union officers could be 
supplied with home stores. We needed a hun- 
dred and ten private letters written to as many 
Northern homes ; I told this to the ladies of my 
class, and the long letters were written and 
posted before night. I think — but I am not 
certain — that the only ether and chloroform 



AS THE WAR WENT ON 187 

which came to the hospital in Richmond where 
Union officers were treated in the spring of 1864 
Avere boxed and sent from our church. 

For all this time the system was going for- 
ward by which we forwarded the stores to hos- 
pitals, and even regiments, which exigencies 
outside the regulations suddenly required. And 
when you go beyond what was physically done 
within the walls of the South Cong;reg;ational 
Church, there is no end to such stories. Men 
and women gave money like water. The words 
"public spirit," the "public breath," got an in- 
terpretation and meaning tliey have never lost. 
God grant they never may ! 

I have an old box of sermons labelled " War 
Sermons." I will not make the reader study 
them. I could not if I would. But the texts 
are suggestive: "Compel them to come in." 
"A little leaven leavenetli the whole lump." 
" Stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ has 
made us free." " Let not him that girdeth on 
his harness boast himself as he that putteth it 
off." " The unity of the spirit." " The spirit 
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." " Give 
to him that asketh of thee, and from him that 
would borrow of thee turn not thou away." 
(This on a sermon which is indorsed, " Take the 



188 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

loan.") "Lift up your eyes and look on the 
fields. They are white already to harvest." 
On a sermon indorsed " Buchanan's Fast/' 
"Put not your trust in princes." As early as 
March 28, 1859, " I beheld Satan as lightning 
fall from heaven." " Gather up the fragments 
that remain, that nothing be lost." In a sermon 
marked " Reaction," " The same is he that 
heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth 
it, yet hath not root in himself but dureth for 
a while." " His mercy endureth forever." On 
the President's Fast, April 30, 1863, " Seeing 
that we are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses." " That they all may be 
one." " What God hath joined together, let no 
man put asunder." " Forgetting those things 
that are behind, and reaching forward to those 
that are before." " And the children of Israel 
went up and wept before the Lord until even 
and asked counsel of the Lord, saying. Shall I 
go up to battle against the children of Ben- 
jamin, my brother ? And the Lord said, Go up 
against him." " Not unto us, Lord, but unto 
thy name give glory." This on the Thanksgiv- 
ing Day after the return of peace. 

I was at the annual commencement of the 
Andover Theological Seminary in August, 1861, 



AS THE WAR AVENT ON 189 

just after our defeat at the first Bull Run. 
The cha[)lain of the day prayed that McDowell 
might be forgiven "'^ for having unnecessarily 
initiated a battle on the Lord's day." My kins- 
man, Professor Stowe, who was there, told this 
story of Longfellow, his classmate in college, 
whom he had met a few days before : Longfellow 
had stopped him in the street and asked him 
how things were going on at Andover ; and said, 
" If New Testament will not do, you nuist give 
them Old." 

Sometimes as an officer of the Sanitary Com- 
mission, sometimes to preach to iny old parish at 
Washington, I went on to that city. I dare not 
say how often as the four years went by. 

Here is a curious memorandum of a conversa- 
tion which I had with Charles Sumner about 
Lincoln's Compensated Emancipation message : — 

"April 26, 1802, Washington. 

Nothing shows the power of the President 
more at the present moment than the way in 
which every person you meet thinks and gives 
you to think that he and the President are hand 
in glove, and, indeed, quite agree. 

I went through with this very pleasantly 
with Dr. Bellows on Tuesday. To-night I took 



190 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

tea with Judge Thomas, who spoke quite freely 
of his intimacy wdth the President, and after- 
ward meeting George Livermore and going 
with him to call on Mr. Sumner. He entertained 
us, and very agreeably, with the history of the 
President's message for compensated emancipa- 
tion, for which he took a good deal of credit 
to himself, and which he told me in much these 
words : — 

" That began a good while ago — as long ago 
as the extra session. But to speak of this ses- 
sion only, the night I got here, Saturday night 

— Congress meets on Monday — as soon as I 
had brushed off the dust of travel, I went down 
to see the President. I talked with him alone 
two hours about the principal subjects of the 
message. I talked to him about the Trent 
affair, about the conduct of the army and 
General McClellan, and about slavery. About 
them all we agreed, or agreed very nearly. 
For about the Trent affair w^e agreed entirely 

— that nothing should be said about it. About 
the army we agreed entirely, and General Mc- 
Clellan, and about slavery we agreed too, 
though some people would not believe this — 
the Daily Advertiser would not believe it, 
Mr. Hale. But we did agree so precisely as 



AS THE WAR WENT ON 191 

this — that the President said after we had 
spoken of the subject in every detail — these 
were his very words, ' Well, Mr. Sumner, the 
only difference between you and me on this 
subject is a difference of a month or six weeks 
in time.' 'Mr. President,' said I, 'if that is 
the only difference between us, I will not say 
another word to you about it till the longest 
time you name has passed by.' Nor should I 
have done so, but about a fortnight after, 
when I was with liim, he introduced the sub- 
ject himself, asked my opinion on some details 
of his plan, and told me where it labored in 
his mind. At that time he had the hope that 
some one of the border States, Delaware, per- 
haps, if nothing better could be got, might be 
brought to make a proposition which could 
be made use of as the initiative to hitch the 
whole thing to. He was in correspondence 
with some persons at a distance with this view, 
but he did not consult a person in Washington, 
excepting Mr. Chase and Mr. Blair and myself. 
Seward knew nothing about it. So it lagged 
along till the Trent matter came to its crisis. 
I was with him then, again and again. Lord 
Lyons sent in Lord Russell's letter. I went 
over with the President that whole subject. 



192 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

There were four ways of meeting it. We went 
over each of the four. We agreed entirely as 
to the course to be adopted. But I said to him 
then as I left him, ' Now, Mr. President, if you 
had done your duty earlier in the slavery mat- 
ter, you would not have this trouble on you. 
Now you have no friends, or the country has 
none, because it has no policy upon slaverj^- 
The country has no friends in Europe, excepting 
isolated persons. England is not our friend. 
France is not. But if you had announced your 
policy about slavery, this thing could and would 
have come and gone and would have given you 
no anxiety.' The Trent message was settled 
at 1 o'clock on the afternoon of the 2Gth of 
December, and that day, or perhaps the next 
day, I drove him up to it again. I said to 
him, I remember, ' I want you to make Con- 
gress a New Year's present of your plan.' But 
he had some reason still for a delay. He was 
in correspondence w^ith Kentucky; there was a 
Mr. Speed in Kentucky to whom he was writ- 
ing ; he read me one of his letters once ; and he 
thought he should hear from there how people 
would be affected by such a plan. Every time 
I saw him, however, I spoke to him about it, 
and I saw him every two or three days. At 



AS THE WAR WENT ON 193 

one time I thought he would send in the mes- 
sage on New Year's Day — and I said sonie- 
tliing about what a glorious thing it would be. 
But he stopped me in a moment. 'Don't say a 
word about that,' said he. "^I know very well 
tliat the name Avhicli is connected with this 
matter will never be forgotten.' Well, there 
was one delay and another, but I always spoke 
to him, till one day, early in January, he said 
sadly that he had been up all night with his 
sick child. And I was very much touched, and 
I resolved that I would say nothing else to the 
President about this or any other business, if I 
could help it, till that child were well, or were 
dead. And I did not. It was a long, com- 
plicated illness. It lasted four weeks. And 
tlie President attended to no business that could 
be avoided. He saw no one, he signed no com- 
missions. There were mountains of commissions 
from the State and Navy and War departments 
waiting for his signature. Seward presided at 
the Cabinet meetings. At last, after it was 
over — I had never said a word to the President 
again about it — one morning here, before I had 
breakfasted, before I was up indeed, both his 
secretaries came over to say that he wanted to 
see me as soon as I could see him. I dressed 

VOL. II. — O 



194 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

at once and went over ; and he said, ^ I want to 
read you my message. I want to know how 
you like it. I am going to send it in to- 
day.' So he read it to me, from his own 
manuscript. And I asked him to let me read 
it myself, so that I could take it in more care- 
fully. Well, when I began there were some 
things in it, you know, that I wanted to cliange 
— now that word abolishment, that I did not 
want, but, you know, I said, ' There is to evei-y 
man an idiosyncrasy, and this is so clearly an 
aboriginal, autochthonous style of its own that I 
will not suggest an alteration.' " 

"Lucky you didn't," said E. E. H. ; "you 
would have made a pretty botch of it." Mr. 
Sumner laughed and said, " Yes, I am afraid so. 
There was, as it was printed, an unfinished 
sentence. That was a mistake in copying ; it 
was not in his manuscript. Of course, if I had 
observed a word left out, or any such thing, I 
would have told him. Well, there was one sen- 
tence where I told him that he must let me re- 
cast it. I took my pencil, and 1 said, ' Let me 
write it thus. I don't want people saying you 
think this and so.' I was going to turn the sen- 
tence round, you know, enough to emasculate it. 
But he said, ' Ell drop the Avhole sentence,' and 



AS THE WAR WENT ON 195 

took his pen and drew it throiigli, I was delighted 
and so was Chase, who came afterwards to thank 
Hie for making him leave it out. I asked him 
how the Cabinet took it. He had called them 
loo'ether the nio-ht before to hear it. I do not 
know when there has been a Cabinet meeting in 
the evening. The Caljinet generally meets Tues- 
day and Friday at 12 and sits nntil 2. But the 
President had sent for them all to come to a 
Cabinet meeting in the evening. ' Oh,' he said, 
'they all liked it.' 'Did Seward like it?' said I. 
' Oh, yes, he liked it.' ' And old Bates, did he 
like it?' ^Oh, he liked it most of all.' 'And 
Smith ? ' ' Smith, he liked it thoroughly.' I 
did not ask him about the others, because of 
them, of course, I knew. Well, I sat with it in 
my hands, reading it over and not bearing to 
give it up, but lie said, ' There, now, you've 
read it enough, run away. I must send it in 
to-day.' He had called his secretary already, 
and he was waiting. I gave him the first page, 
and he copied it while I was reading the rest. 
1 rode down to the Senate, and then I went to 
General Lander's funeral. I was one of the pall- 
l)earers. I met the President there, but I said 
nothing about this, of course. I rode back to 
the Senate and found them in executive session. 



196 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I went to the desk to see if the message had 
been sent in, and there it was. I went to one 
Senator and another, to ask them if they knew 
what the President had sent in. Oh, some more 
nominations, they snpposed. But I sent them 
to the desk to see, and so one Senator and 
another read it there. 

"But I had told the President that I should 
say nothing about it. It should be his act. I 
might, of course, have made a speech. I might 
have made some preparation for a speech of 
welcome to it. But I would not do this. And 
I said nothing, but to vote as every one else did. 
Yet I had been the only Senator consulted from 
the beginning to the end." 

I copy the whole of this memorandum of 
one of Mr. Sumner's conversations, because it 
shows, in a way which is now as pathetic 
as it is amusing, what his quite unconscious 
habit was of patronizing the people ■\^ ith whom 
he had to do. I have been told that he was 
the most unpopular man who was ever in the 
United States Senate. I am afraid this is true. 
If it is true, it is simply because, without in the 
least meaning to do so, he would speak with this 
air of superiority, which was really droll. I do 
not think myself that he was an arrogant man. 



A YEAR LATER 197 

He did sometimes think of himself more highly 
than he onght to think; but that is a fault 
which most members of most Senates share 
with him. There was a certain frankness of 
manner, almost rustic or pagan, if one may say 
so, which ruffled people and made them cross 
when he did not even suspect that he was 
'•'riling" them. It is interesting to see liow 
good-naturedly Lincoln took this, and how well 
he understood Mr. Sumner, through and through. 

A YEAE LATER 

Here is a letter of my o^vn, of a year later, 
which shows how varied w^ere the interests in 
Washington life in the year 1863 : — 

"The guests were Admiral Davis, General Force, 
just now from Vicksburg ; Colonel Abbot, in 
command of the defences opposite the city ; Mr. 
Collins, from Asia, who spoke of a despatch he 
had just had from Irkutsk, and is engaged now 
in building the telegrapli up to Behring's Straits;^ 
Dr. Adams, of the Medical Bureau, a sort of aid 
of Surgeon-General Hammon's, fresh from a tour 

1 This telegraph was Imilt some ten years before its time and 
was never of anj- use, but that the Indians regarded it as a God- 
sent magazine of wire. Indeed, T believe they use it as such to 
this day. Wire is a great treasin-e in a savage land. 



198 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of inspection at the West, and a Colonel Cun- 
ningliam. The ladies Yiere only the three pretty 
Miss AbJDots, and Mary certainly did the honors 
charmingly. I see I have not named Mr. Chan- 
ning/ who was very bright and came out very 
pleasantly. I do not know when I have been at 
a brighter party. What is striking, as soon as 
you are among the military or naval men, is 
their sweet, simple loyalty, their indifference to 
politics, and their confidence of success. General 
Force said that lie rode down to Natchez to see 
a city which had not been injured by the war. 
There he found children playing in the streets, 
ladies in the verandas, and the city as beautiful 
as ever. 'And the men?' we asked. 'The 
men,' he said, had been 'strong enough and of 
influence enough to keep themselves from being 
hanged ; they had sworn they would not go into 
the rebel army, liad theh^ property seized because 
they would not, but had protected their families 
against guerillas, and so had roughed through. 
And old Dr. Duncan,' said he, 'told me he 
counted himself worth a million and three hun- 
dred thousand dollars when the war began, that 
he would gladly take fifteen thousand dollars in 
greenbacks for all that was left, " but the sight 

1 Rev. William H. Channing. 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 199 

of the old flag," said he, " was worth it all." ' Is 
not that really touching — to know there is some 
such feeling somewhere ? Admiral Davis told a 
curious story, illustrating the English confidence 
in our ruin. After Bull Run, their Hydrographic 
Office did not send the annual relay of charts 
which it is their custom to send to the different 
departments of our Government. And for more 
than that year, through the next year, they dis- 
continued them, but as soon as we opened the 
Mississippi last year, they thought the chance of 
the charts beinEi; taken care of amounted to more. 



and beii-an to send them attain. Mr. Channino; 
gave a very interesting account of the exciting 
debate in the House on the proposed expulsion 
of Lane and Harris to-day. I had heard a part 
of this discussion, but- had no sense of the feeling 
it had really excited upon the floor. All this 
sort of anecdote makes you feel that you really 
are in the midst of things." 

MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 

A year later still I saw an army for the first 
time. It seemed to me that I had seen every 
detail of preparation at Readville, where our own 
ret^-iments were soldiered. I had followed along 
all the business where raw volunteers were taken 



200 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

into camp and regiments got in order for the 
front. At Fort Independence, in the harbor, 
there was apt to be a regiment, or more, going 
through the same process. On Sundays one or 
another of us went down there to see the boys 
and preach to them. We knew all about shirts 
and underclothing and hospital stores, and, alas ! 
we began to know about pensions and State 
relief. We had more than enough to do with 
widows and children of men who had been killed, 
and with women who were virtually widowed, 
though their husbands were alive at the front. 
We had sent everything to the hospital stores 
— testaments, playing-cards, fans, mosquito hel- 
mets, and havelocks. But, all the same, I wanted 
to see an army, and in April, 1864, I went to 
Washington determined to do so if I could. I 
stayed in Washington from the 8tli of March 
until the 11th. On the Sunday the memoran- 
dum in my note-book is : " Preached at the capi- 
tal, new brief, ' Compel them to come in.' " It 
was on this visit that I called on the President. 

They all told me that no civilian would be 
permitted in the camp of Grant's army. But I 
found that I could go down to Fort Monroe and 
see General Butler's army. 

I had met General Butler that winter at a 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 201 

dinner given )iim in Boston, where I sat by him, 
and we had an interesting conversation for the 
evening. He had invited me cordially to come 
and see him at Fort Monroe. On this occasion 
I had Sanitary business of importance enough 
to justify my going down the bay to the fort. 
And I went to Norfolk on the 12th of April. 
There I was the guest of General Wild — one 
of our Massachusetts generals — who was at 
that moment very much interested in the mus- 
tering and employment of colored troops. 

On the 14th of April I crossed to Fort Monroe, 
where I was immediately welcomed by General 
Butler. And he fairly compelled me by his exu- 
berant courtesy to make my home at his house. I 
spent four or five days very pleasantly there. On 
the afternoon of Sunday, the 17th, he ordered a 
review of colored troops on the broad beach to the 
east and noi-th of the fortress. There were more 
than five thousand men under arms, mostly ne- 
groes, proud of their new position. Over at 
Hampton, opposite, they sing to this hour the 
hymn which General Armstrong liked so much: — 

"We look like men, 
We look like men, 
We look like men of war, 
All armed and dressed in uniform, 
And ready for the war." 



202 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

And Butler told me that in the movements of 
the Peninsula these men could be placed where 
you would think no troops could stand. They 
were paying off the debts of generations. 

On Monday he sent me round to Yorktown 
and Gloucester, where my friend General Joseph 
Hawley was in command. I saw a little then 
of the life of soldiers in the field. When on 
Tuesday I bade General Butler good-by, I said 
to him : " The next time you see me I shall be 
a recruit, and I shall present arms to you at this 
gateway, as you are riding in." He said, eagerly, 
" Why, if you will come, Mr. Hale, we will take 
you to-day. We will put you in the forefront 
of the battle, as David put Uriah. I suppose 
there would have been nothing wrong in that 
if Uriah had asked David to place him there." 
With this farewell I came home, little thinking 
that I should so soon have his invitation — shall 
I say, to take Uriah's place ? 

But, as I knew, the joint movement by the 
Army of the James River, on the south, with 
Grant's army on the north, was impending. 
And I had been at home but little more than 
three weeks when I received a telegram from 
Colonel Shaffer, Butler's Chief of Staff, dated at 
Bermuda Hundred, a point which Butler had 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 203 

seized successfully at the jiniction of the Appo- 
mattox and the James rivers. The despatch 
read, " Come on at once ; we are more successful 
than our best hopes." Who could resist such an 
invitation ? Not I ; and I left my plough in the 
furrow. I arranged somehow for my pulpit, and 
went at once to Washington. I called on my 
old friend Edward Townsend, who was Adjutant- 
general, I think, of the army. He had been a 
boy in the Latin School with me, and was a few 
years my senior. I showed him my invitation, 
told him I tliought I could be of use in Sanitary 
matters, and he gave me a despatch for General 
Butler. It proved to be a talisman such as 
Aladdin used to carry. From that moment I 
was a bearer of despatches and could take great 
airs on m3'self. I went down the river at once 
to Fort Monroe and reported there, to find that 
all my friends of the staff, with one exception, 
were in the army at the front, and tliat a steamer 
was going up in the morning on which I could 
go. 

We were rather more than halfway up tlie 
river when we were arrested for a little by the 
sound of liring on the shore. It proved that 
this was one of tlie days when Fitzhugh Lee 
had attempted to cut off" General Butler s river 



204 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

communications. He had attacked the field 
works which we had on the south side of the 
river. As it happened, some of these works 
were held by negroes recruited in Virginia, and 
this was one of the earlier trials of those troo23S. 
After a little delay on this account, we j)ressed 
on; and just about nightfall arrived at the 
crowded water-front of Bermuda Hundred. The 
w^hole army of twenty-five thousand men had ar- 
rived there suddenly a fortnight before, as if it 
had fallen from the skies. In that time wharves 
and landing-places had been improvised with 
marvellous rapidity ; and although there was 
endless confusion, still things seemed to go for- 
W'ard with the kind of energy which marks the 
work of a well-disciplined army. 

For me, I was as ignorant as a freshman is 
on entering college of what I was to do. I 
knew that General Butler and his staff were six 
or seven miles away. I knew that night w^as 
falling, and I did not know how I was to go to 
him. Fortunately for me, as I thought, there 
was on the boat a member of his staff with 
whom I had some acquaintance, and I relied 
upon him to help me through. When we landed, 
liowever, he w^as out of the way, and I could 
not find him. I suspected that he did not care 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 205 

to embarrass himself witli a civilian and was 
intentionally keeping out of sight. I think so 
still. 

I therefore did what I always do in life — 
struck as high as I could. I said to the sentinel 
that I was a bearer of despatches, and asked 
him the way to the headquarters of the com- 
mander of that post. This gentleman was Colo- 
nel Fuller of Massachusetts. He said at once 
that his own orderly should go with me to Gen- 
eral Butler ; that the Colonel w^ould lend me his 
own horse, and would send my valise on the 
ambulance the next morning. So the horse was 
saddled, and about the time when it became 
quite dark the soldier and I started on om* way. 

He knew no more of the road than I did, and 
a very bad road it was. I made my first ac- 
quaintance with the sacred soil of Virginia then 
and there. We lost ourselves sometimes, and 
then we found ourselves, the greater part of the 
road being the worst possible country road, all 
cut to pieces by the heavy army work, through 
woods, not of large trees, w^iich were close 
enough on both sides to darken the passage. It 
was nine o'clock or later when we saw the wel- 
come sight of the headquarters camp-fires. 

We rode up and I jumped from my horse 



206 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to shake hands with General Butler, Colonel 
Shaffer, and the other gentlemen. They asked 
instantly how we had passed the batteries. I 
told the story, and General Butler, who was 
always effusively polite, and who to his other 
gracious ways added excpiisite facility in flattery, 
said to me : '• We are greatly obliged to you, 
Mr. Hale ; I have been very anxious for two or 
three hours. I was afraid my despatches w^ere 
cut off." I had already handed to him the 
utterly unimportant letter from the War Depart- 
ment which had been my talisman thus far. 

Then and tliere I first heard soldiers talk of 
what had been done and what had not been 
done in that day. I knew beforehand that, in 
the push toward Kichmond, we had been flung 
back on Fort Darling. 1 did not l^now, till I 
came there, exactly how the command was im- 
pressed by this delay. But in tlie headquarters 
circle I found nothing but confidence, and I 
very soon saw that I was to understand that 
we should have taken Richmond but for the 
heavy fog of the day of battle and some other 
infelicities. I think now this is probably true. 

The fires Avere kept Ijurning, and we sat and 
chatted there hour after hour. When we had 
been there perhaps two hours, up came my dihx- 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 207 

torv military friend of the General's staff, and 
with sufficient profanity exorcised the roads over 
which we had ridden. He had never been there 
before. General Butler heard him through, and 
then said, " But here is Mr. Hale, who has been 
here two hours." The soldier turned on me, a 
little crestfallen — all the other members of the 
staff sufficiently amused — and he asked me with 
another oath how I found the way. I said, 
" We followed the telegraph ware ; " and from 
that day I was rather a favorite with the staff 
for this civilian snub on a gentleman who was 
not a favorite. 

Meanwhile, somebody had been ordered to 
pitch a tent for me, and about eleven o'clock, 
I suj)pose, I went to bed in my new quarters. 
I had slept an hour, however, as it proved, 
when I was awakened by the firing of cannon. 
I had never heard such firing ; as it j^roved 
afterward, they Avere the heaviest guns which 
I have ever heainl in m}^ life. Of course I 
wanted to jump up. but I said to myself: "It 
will seem very green if I walk out on the first 
somid of firing. I suppose this is what I came 
to the front for. If they want me they will 
call me, and I shall hoar firing enough before 
I have done." So I turned over and tried to 



208 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

go to sleep — did go to sleep — and was awakened 
again by louder and louder firing. All this lasted, 
I suppose, perhaps an hour, perhaps two. Then 
all was still, and I went to sleep for the night. 

You are awakened in camp, if you are at a 
major-general's, by the bugles of his cavalry 
escort, and the next morning I heard their 
reveille also for the first time. I washed myself, 
I was already dressed of course, and in a little time 
an orderly told me that breakfast was ready. I 
met at breakfast Captain Laurie, a fine old officer 
of the navy wdiom I had known slightly in Bos- 
ton. He said to me, " And how did you like 
our fir ins: last night, Mr. Hale ? " I said that 
to me, as a civilian, it seemed very loud ; but 
I supposed that that was what I had come to war 
for, and I did not get up from my bed. Laurie 
answered as if he would rebuke me for my ignor- 
ance, " I have been in the service for thirty-nine 
years and I have never heard such firing before." 
I found then, for the first time, that the whole 
staff had been up and on horseback, had been at 
the front to try to find out what this firing was, 
and had returned almost as much perplexed as 
they went. 

It was thus that it happened to me that I spent 
my first and last battle in bed. 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 209 

I was acting on the principles of doing the duty 
which came next my hand and obeying all orders 
wliich were given to me by constituted authori- 
ties. 1 had not run away ; I was pleased with 
that. And if I had not personally received the 
surrender of three or four battle-flags, that was 
my misfortune. 

I had occasion afterward to hear, not to say 
report, much of the testimony, and to read all 
the rest of it, which related to this remarkable 
battle. If you will read the history of the time, 
as told in the Richmond newspapers and those 
of New York City, and will put them together, 
you will learn that on that night a reconnois- 
sance was sent out from om^ lines into the tangled 
shrubbery which separated our newly built works 
from those of the rebels. You will learn that 
the rebel guns mowed down these columns as 
corn is mowed down before a tempest. Or, if 
you read a Northern newspaper, you will learn 
that a certain column of the rebel troops, who 
Mere named, were worse than decimated by simi- 
lar artillery from our works. 

Every word of this was entirely false. In fact, 
there was a very heavy cannonading from the 
newly erected works on both sides. As I have 
said, it lasted an hour or two. Much of it on 



VOL. II. — P 



210 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

our side was from heavy guns which had been 
hmded from the navy to strengthen the battery 
which we had near the river. But as the result 
of it all, there was never any evidence that a 
rabbit was scratched. Certainly no drop of 
human ])lood was shed in that encounter of 
giants. 

How it happened so late in the evening I do 
not know. But what happened was this : A 
party of ladies had been entertained on board 
one of our ships of war. As they left an officer, 
with the gallantry of his profession, asked one 
of the ladies if she would like to see liow a gun 
was fired, and to do pleasure to her he fired one 
of the guns in the darkness. At that moment 
everything was on the qui vive ashore, and our 
land-battery men, eager for something to do, 
finding that one shot was fired, thought that 
another had better be fired, and continued firing. 
This started the successive artillerists for nearly 
a mile, as our works ran up into the country 
toward the Appomattox River, and, not to be 
belated or accused of sleepiness, successive bat- 
teries began firing in turn. Of course this roused 
the equally ready artillerists on the rebel side, 
and they fired — I suppose at the flashes which 
they saw a mile or two away. And this was the 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 211 

famous cannonade which made the whole of my 
first battle. 

The naval officers were dreadfully mortified, 
our gentlemen at headquarters were indignant 
beyond account, and the thing almost came to 
courts-martial and courts of inquiry. But it was 
wisely thought better to leave the record of it to 
be made at the end of thirty years by the only 
person who was at all concerned, who spent the 
hours of the battle in his bed under canvas. 

Such was my first and last battle. Since 
Shaffer's triumphant despatch to me things had 
not taken so cheerful a turn. As soon as General 
Butler had established liis position at Bermuda 
Hundred he had felt his enemy on tlie side of 
Richmond, which is hardly fifteen miles away. 
He had a srood armv of men under g;ood leaders 
and in great spirits, and he made a bold forward 
movement. I think, as I said, a good many of 
them felt to the day of their death that they would 
have been in Richmond the night of that move- 
ment but for a heavy fog which disconcerted 
all plans. Men and companies, not to say regi- 
ments, were lost in the foo;. Thev all called it 
•"fighting in a fog." The gentleman who com- 
manded our right wing told me that he made his 
aides carry little sticks with them which they 



212 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

drove down in this place and that place, that 
they might be able to mark in the darkness the 
direction of their routes. And although there 
was no defeat, at the end of the day nothing 
had happened. 

For me, as soon as I arrived I was most cor- 
dially welcomed hy the staff. I was immediately 
registered as a member of the staff, and I spent 
the better part of a fortnight under canvas. 
After one day I saw that a civilian was entirely 
out of place in camp; that I was in every- 
body's way. Of course I w^as very anxious to 
make myself useful. I was sitting with Gen- 
eral Butler himself in his tent — a tent, by the 
way, which had a curious history — when he 
asked me to strike a bell on the table. An 
orderly came in and the General said, " Go tell 
Lieutenant Davenport that I want him." I said : 
" You are going to call Davenport to write short- 
hand. He is at work Avith the court-martial. 
Do not send for him. Use me." Butler, as I 
said, was always profuse in his courtesies, and 
he affected at once that it would be a great ser- 
vice to him if I would write ; that he did not 
want to detach Davenport from the court-martial ; 
and so it happened that all the time I was with 
him I acted as his personal secretary from eight 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 213 

in the morning until one every day. Somebody 
else then took my place, and I in the afternoon 
wrote out the letters and other notes which we 
had made in the morning. Thus for that week 
and more I was behind the scenes, seeing the 
administration of a great army in all its largest 
affairs and in its smallest detail. This was the 
good I then got out of learning to write short- 
hand in the Brattle Street Meeting-house when 
I was ten years old. 

My campaign ended just when General Will- 
iam F. Smith was ordered off with his army 
corps to strengthen Grant's army on its advance 
from the North. Butler was sick that after- 
noon — sick from rage and disappointment that 
half his command was taken away from liini. 
He said to me, '* General Smith is coming to 
dine with me, l)ut I must go to l)ed, and you 
inust entertain liim." So Smith and I sat 
together at a rather gruesome dinner. I said 
to him, '' You are all disappointed that your 
corps is ordered to the Nortli." Smith said, 
" Humanly speaking, Mr. Hale, I was as sure 
of beino; in Petersburo; to-morrow mornimy at 
eight o'clock as you are that you are sitting 
on that chair." 

The truth was, we had planned this attack 



214 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

ou Petersburg, and the Department at Washing- 
ton, which had but little confidence in us, had 
ordered Smith off just in time to defeat us. 
Instead of taking Petersburg, his corps were 
thrown into the carnage of Cold Harbor. 

That afternoon, Sunday, General Butler sat 
with me on the side of a hill, as we saw Smith's 
division pass from his command. He told me 
a good deal of his early life. Among other 
incidents, he told me of a curious chance by 
which he was compelled to give up his plans 
for serving under the Emperor of China, plans 
in which he would have taken the place which 
Chinese Gordon took afterward. For those 
plans the marquee had been made in which I 
had dined that day. 

Alas ! we were not in Petersburg for well-nigh 
a year. But in the next April the end came. 
I have had the account of the sixty miles' march 
up the Appomattox Valle}", which brought the 
war to an end, from the lips of Robert Lincoln, 
who was on Grant's staff, and of General Ord 
himself, who directed that wing of the army. 
Ord told me the story as, in Texas, we sat by 
the marble table on which the articles of sur- 
render were written. General Ord had bought 
it as a historical memorial from the Virginian 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 215 

owner at the Appomattox Court-house. I 
have heard Bouve of Washburn's force give his 
dramatic account of the gallant movement of 
the headquarters cavalry, under our Colonel 
AVashburn, of Lancaster, the last martyr of the 
war in Massachusetts, which met the enemy at 
High Bridge, and realh^ determined Lee to sur- 
render. That battle at High Bridge ended the 
Avar, and in my judgment, is the most dramatic 
event in the war. As yet we have no '• Ballad 
of High Bridge," but let us hope that the boy is 
livino: who will write one. 

For what men wanted to write in those days, 
we had, besides the newspapers, theiYor^A Amer- 
ican Revieiv, edited b}'^ Lowell, the Atlantic 
Month! f/, and the Christian Examiner — of 
which I was myself one of the working editors, 
— imder the admii-able lead of Dr. Frederic 
Henry Hedge. We boys used to call liiiii '• The 
Chief," as indeed he was. For young editors, 
who do not understand the great necessity of 
])romptness in a magazine, I will tell t^^o stories 
of thin2;s which wounded me at the time and 
which point a lesson for those who conduct 
journals. Mr. Williaih Cullen Bryant, for whom 
I worked at one time, laid down the ride thus, 
*' If vou do not use an article on the dav for 



216 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

which it is written, do not nse it at all." This 
is too strong, but even in the exaggeration there 
is a great truth hidden, as the philosophers 
would say. 

I was, so to speak, on the staff of the 
Atlantic. This means" that I was very intimate 
with Phillips and, indeed, with Sampson who 
published it. I was in and out at their pub- 
lication office till they died, I had been for 
twenty years on the closest personal terms 
with Lowell, and when the firm of Fields 
and Osgood took the magazine, I was very in- 
timate with the dear Fields. So it happened 
that when in January, 1860, I came home from 
Eno;land I wrote for them an article on the 
" Working-men's College " which had, just then, 
been founded by Frederic Denison Maurice, and 
I told in the article a story of my meeting 
Thomas Hughes there, for the first time. 

The point of the story rested in this. That 
as he was watching a drill of an awkward squad 
in the little garden behind the college building in 
Ormond Street, London, the drill sergeant came 
up and asked for two more men to fill out the 
files ; and Hughes turned to two of us — both 
Americans — and asked if we would not fall in. 
"You only need to know your facings ! " Alas 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 217 

and alas ! neither of us did know our facings, 
and we had to confess it. 

Yet at that moment I was registered some- 
where as a private in the army of Massachusetts, 
and somewhere there was a musket and cartridge 
box for me. 

This story I told, not to my own advantage, 
in my article on the " Working-men's College," 
and sent the article to the editor of the Atlantic 
who accepted it. I forgot it, and I suppose he 
did. Imagine my disgust, when the number 
for April, 1861, came out — that fatal April, — 
when I was drilling and beiug drilled, when 
I wore a uniform jacket, and could drill 
men who were to be major-generals — this ven- 
eraljle article appeared revealing to a cynical 
world the fact that 1 did not know my facings ! 

Even harder fortune waited on another article 
of mine, the story of " A Man Without a Coun- 
try." In the very heart of the war, Vallan- 
digham, an Ohio politician, said on some public 
occasion, that he did not want to belong to a 
country which did what Lincoln and the Govern- 
ment were doing. Military law prevailed in Ohio 
in those days, and General Burnside, who was in 
command there, arrested Vallandigham, as a 
traitor, I suppose, and sent him into the Confed- 



218 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

erate lines with his compliments to the general ; 
we did not want such people, he said ; perhaps 
they did. 

With a certain pluck which characterizes Ohio, 
perhaps, the Democratic party nominated this 
man for Governor of that State to be candidate 
in the election of October, 1863. I told Fields 
of the Atlantic at once, that I had in my ink- 
stand the story of " A Man Without a Country," 
that this would be a good time for it ; and that 
if he could print it in his September number, he 
should have it in time for the Ohio election. 
Fields agreed, and I wrote the story, which 
had required a great deal of study for its details. 
I had had it in mind long before. I was spend- 
ing the summer in Worcester, and the library of 
the Antiquarian Society gave me what no other 
library in America could have given me so well, 
— the material for local color as to Aaron 
Burr and to my Philip Nolan. 

Accordingly, the article was in type before 
September. But alas ! not printed, not even 
in October or November. And Mr. Vallan- 
digham was hopelessly defeated in the October 
election with no credit to jDOor me. 

I had a standing agreement with Fields that 
I would write for the Atlantic articles to keep 



MY FIRST AND LAST BATTLE 219 

lip people's courage. This was when people felt 
very blue, in the middle of the war. There are 
one or two of these articles without my name, I 
believe. Those which bear my name are : 
^' Solid Operations in Virginia," " A Man With- 
out a Country," " Northern Invasions," " How 
to use Victory," " How Mr. Frye would have 
Preached it." 

As every one is dead now, I suppose I may say 
that this last story covers in a parable the rela- 
tions of General Butler with General Banks. 

As I have referred to Mr. Vallandigiiani above, 
T will tell the tragic story of his dcatli. He 
returned to Ohio, and was highly esteemed there 
as a lawyer, and as such had a large practice. 

He had to defend a person accused of murder. 
He formed a theory that the dead man had 
killed hiinself. He tried in his argument to 
convince the jur}^ that it was so; so he carried 
a pistol into court. He showed how he supposed 
the man carried his. He handled the pistol 
freely. He put it to his own breast, — and 
then, carried away by his own imagination, he 
said, " He fired the pistol, gentlemen ! " fired 
his own, and fell dead. 



LITERATURE 



CHAPTER VI 
LITERATURE 

NO, "\ve will not deceive ourselves. 
The physical 230wer at almost every 
man's hand in the United States is now a thou- 
sand times greater than it was in 1801. 

Thus there were then only five steam engines 
ill the country. All together they did not use as 
much power as is used in one large locomotive 
to-day. 

Two ''' power-houses in Niagara " utilize fifty 
thousand '"' horse-power " where within ten miles 
in 1801 there was not so much as one horse, 
serving man or God. 

An ocean steamship, in her six days' voyage 
from New York to Liverpool, develops more 
power than Cheops had at his command when he 
huiltthe great Pyramid. 

But these are only physical victories. 

They are second to the victories or steps of 
advance which the country has won in its knowl- 

223 



224 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

edge of the Eternities — in men's progress in 
Faith and Hope and Love. 

My father was a printer. And there were 
much larger offices in the United States. But it 
was a printing-office. He printed, by the water- 
power of the Back Bay in Boston, editions of the 
Bible, from stereotype plates. He printed for 
the owners of such plates many other standard 
books. He also printed the Boston Daihj 
Advertiser, the Semi-Weekly Advertiser and the 
Weekly Messenger. The circulation of these 
papers was as nothing to the circulation of 
newspapers in our time. But the Advertiser 
appeared six times and the semi-weekly twice 
a week. The size of these papers would 
now be called diminutive, but there were a 
great many of them. When he died in 1863, 
I had the curiosity to calculate the number of 
pages, and even of words, which he had printed, 
and I satisfied myself that he had printed more 
words in that half century than would have 
been found in all the libraries in the world the 
day the century came in. 

Or compare colleges and schools. Massachu- 
setts has stood as well as any State in arrange- 
ments for education. In 1800 she had two 
colleges, and in both there were hardly two hun- 



LITERATURE 



225 



dred students. In the same State there are now 
thu'teen colleges, of which the largest has 5124 
students and teachers, and the smallest, I suppose, 
four hundred. The average attendance of col- 
legiate students is probably one hundred times 
as lar2:e as it was then. 




Stoughton Hall, Hakvaku College. 
Built after Old StouKhtou was burned dowTi in 1775. 



In more than twenty towns in Massachusetts 
there are now well-equipped buildings for high 
schools, each more costly and on a larger scale 
than any building which Harvard College had 
when I graduated in 1839. 



VOL. 11. — Q 



226 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

lu ITTo there were thirty-seven newspapers 
in the United States; one was published twice a 
week, the others were all weeklies. It would be 
an overestimate if we guessed that the weekly 
circulation of them all w^as forty thousand copies. 
One New York paper now ]3rints more than five 
hundred thousand copies every day of the three 
hundred and sixty-five, and every copy contains 
more of what is called "matter," by a certain 
satire, than any one of the 1775 journals printed 
in a year. Twenty-two thousand newspapers are 
now regularly published in the United States. 

The increase in population in the same time 
is fourteen fold. The census of 1800 showed 
a population of five million three hundred 
thousand, that of 1900 showed seventy-five 
million. 

These fragmentary statements are enough to 
show that the enlargement of the life, whether 
of individual men or women or of the country, 
has advanced in directions which are utterly 
outside of the mechanism of statistics. Now one 
does not pretend that reading, writing, and 
arithmetic are the signs of spiritual life or moral 
victory. But they are excellent tools for a child 
of God to handle, and we who are trying to 
study the century, so as to find out whether the 



LITERATURE 227 

kingdom of God or the chaos of the devil has 
made headway, may pay some such attention to 
the tools which men and women have had in 
hand as the century went by. 

Without counting words or pages, it is enough 
if you will try to read the publications of 1800. 
Compare the exhibition which they give of the 
real life of men and women against what Ave 
know of the lives of men and women now, we 
shall begin to see how it is that the living men 
and women of to-day can control the senseless 
giants of physical power which in a hundred 
years (4od and his children have called into 
being. 

Among a hundred illustrations, the change in 
literature is one of the most interesting. Its 
importance nuist not be overrated, but it is not 
to be slightly spoken of. 

It is, for instance, easy to see that when- 
ever an American wanted to enlarge his life 
in study, he went, of course, to England. It 
was precisely as Martial went from Spain to 
Rome. 

Washington Irving, as soon as he had felt his 
own power, went in 1804 to the south of Europe. 
At Rome he made the friendship of Washington 
Allston, and in eighteen months he had travelled 



228 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

through the Continent of Europe. He came 
back to America and tried to live here, but after 
eight years, in which he joined in the Salma- 
gundi and published "Knickerbocker," he went 
to Europe again. He then lived there seventeen 
years. Sunply this means that he could not live 
here. For a man like him, the intellectual, 
spiritual, aesthetic, and literary life of England 
and the rest of Europe offered advantages, not 
to say temptations, which America could not 
offer. That is one instance, which could be 
multiplied indefinitely, which shows the intel- 
lectual desolateness of our own country for the 
first quarter of a century. 

Joel Barlow, as a matter of course, had pul> 
lished his poem in London. As late as 1821 
Alexander Hill Everett published his " Europe " 
in London and reprinted it in his own country. 
The remark of Sidney Smith's, so often cited, 
" Who reads an American book ? " has been 
bitterly resented here. But it implied what was 
substantially true, and it is a convenient enough 
guide-post to show where the roadway of that 
time led men. One has only to look at the early 
American book catalogues and advertisements, 
say at the droll list wliich the great house of 
Harper published in its first five years, to see 



LITERATURE 



229 



that in truth there was no important American 
literatm*e. 

I have given the second chapter of Volume II. 
to the liistorians, or to a few of them whom I 




I'iNi 1 'ui.^ii ■! N I ^ 1 >i 1 1 A i;\ A i;i> ( 1 ii,Li-.(;i;. 
Quiiic}', Everett, Sparks, Walker, Feltou. 

knew. It is wholly fair to say that there is 
now a school of American History. 

Of the poets I can give only a few words to one 
little company of American poets, who, as it hap- 
pened, were near personal friends and lived close 
to eacli other and ought to be spoken of together. 



230 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

RALPH AVALDO EMERSON 

Ralph Waldo Emerson returned from his first 
visit to Europe in 1833. It was soon made 
known that he would be a lecturer rather than a 
preacher, and, under the admirable arrangements 
of the old lyceum systems, he was engaged to 
deliver some lectures in Boston in the course of 
what was called the Useful Knowledge Society. 
I heard those lectures, of which the one which 
I remember was that on Mahomet, the substance 
of which is included in " Representative Men," 
and it must have been at that time that I first 
saw Emerson to know him by name. 

I first spoke to him at the college exhibition 
of his cousin George Samuel Emerson, a young 
man who died too early for the rest of us. Young 
Emerson had, for a few weeks before he entered 
college, read some of his preparatory Greek with 
me, and I had become very fond of him. At 
the junior exhibition, so called, in Cambridge, of 
1844, he had the first oration in his class. 
College " exhibitions " are now unknown in 
Cambridge, but then they made a pretty part in 
the life of the time. 

What happened was this : Three times a year 
there was an exhibition — one in May, one in 




Ralph ^VAI-Do Emerson. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 233 

July, and one in October, I think. The first 
twenty-four of each class first knew that they 
were as high in rank as this by the announce- 
ment of the exhibition parts. The first man 
in the class had the first English oration. 

On such occasions the boys, or men, as they 
called themselves, who had *' parts," if they 
lived in Boston or had any circle of friends to 
invite, had a little party in their own room. 
Such parties are now called " spreads," but that 
word was then unknown. Eight juniors and 
eight sophomores would speak at one exhibition ; 
then, as the junior class advanced, eight seniors 
and eight juniors would speak at the next, and 
again eight seniors and eight juniors would 
speak at the third. 

Young George Emerson, as first scholar in his 
class, had the oration on this occasion. Tlie 
chapel contained two or three hundred of his 
friends and the friends of his classmates. After 
the whole was over, and as the assembly broke 
up, I crossed the chapel that I might speak to 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who stood alone, as it 
happened, under the gallery. I introduced my- 
self to him, and I said I wanted to congratulate 
him on the success of his cousin. He said: 
" Yes, I did not know I had so fine a young 



234 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

cousin. And now, if something will fall out 
amiss, — if he should be unpopular with his 
class, or if his father should fail, or if some 
other misfortune can befall him, — all will be 
well." I was indignant with what I called the 
cynicism of his speech. I thought it the affec- 
tation of the new philosopher who felt that he 
must say something out of the way of common 
congratulation. But I learned afterward, what 
he had learned then, that " good is a good 
master, but bad is a better." And I do not 
doubt now that the remark, which seemed cyni- 
cal, was most affectionate. 

In the same college he had been " President's 
Freshman." This meant that he had a room 
assigned to him, without paying for it, and per- 
haps some other privileges, in return for which 
the Presideut sent him on his errands. Emer- 
son's father and the President, Dr. Kirkland, had 
been neighbors and friends. I may say in pass- 
ing that the room is now occupied by the bursar 
of the college, and when we " get around to it," 
as our fine Yankee phrase is, we are going to 
put up a bronze to say that Emerson lived here 
the first year of his college life ; we are going 
to put up another at Hollis 5, to say that he 
lived there when he was a sophomore, and yet 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 235 

auother at Hollis 15, to say that he lived there 
afterward. 

Mr. Cabot's charming biography gives several 
illustrations of Emerson's eagerness to relieve his 
mother, even in the slightest matters of ex})ense ; 
and it is pathetic to see how large was his grati- 
tude for any opportunity to render her any 
pecuniary assistance. It was not many years 
before I came into closer personal intimacy with 
him than this story implies. Beginning with the 
year 1848, which was the year of the Irish fam- 
ine, I saw and knew him personally in ways 
which did me no end of good. I have tried to 
make other people feel that he was a real man, 
who went and came with the rest of us and lived 
as the rest of us live. His simple accessibility to 
all sorts and conditions of men belono-s to his 
philosophy of life as born and nurtured in the 
principles which make such easy accessibility 
possible. Lowell calls him the New England 
Plato, Holmes calls him the Buddha of the West 
— good phrases both of them. But everybody 
must remember that Plato or Buddha, in this 
case, was an out-and-out New Englander. He 
knew New England Ijetter than many of the 
politicians know her. He knew some esseutial 
things about her business and daily life which 



236 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the scientific writers on politics do not know 
to-day ; and he was never misled by mediae val 
or European analogies. In the midst of the 
Irish famine I told him that a poor Irish family 
threw out of the window the corn meal which 
we had sent to them. And he stated the cen- 
tral principle of the whole business when he 
said, " You should have sent them hot cakes." 

He would stand on the sidewalk of the Con- 
cord post-office before the mail came in that he 
might talk politics with the nurserymen or farm- 
ers. He worked in his own garden ; he set out 
his own pear trees ; he did it very badly, as the 
rest of us do. But it pleased him that he did not 
belong to the Brahminical caste ; and that he 
was one of the Concord people, and that he 
touched elbows with the rest of them. 

It would be ridiculous to call him a man of 
business. Yet one remembers that he sent to 
Carlyle the first money which Carlyle ever re- 
ceived for his books. He told me himself that 
the first money he received from any of his own 
books was that which Phillips and Sampson paid 
him in the year 1850 for " Representative Men." 
Mr. Phillips, of that firm, told me that Emerson 
wrote to him a note to say that a mistake had 
been made, and that he meant that the proceeds 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 237 

of tlie first sale were to be spent for the stereo- 
type plates and the cost of the impression. Mr. 
Phillips replied to him that that was provided 
for and that what he had received was the bal- 
ance which was due him. On this he came into 
the counting-room of the young firm and asked 
if he could use the check for any pur])ose. as he 
had no printers' bills to pay with it. And Mr. 
Phillips had to explain to him how to indorse 
the check, which was made to his order. It 
was his first experience in that branch of finance. 

I am writing these lines on the morning after 
I return from Hanover, where Dartmouth College 
has been doing itself honor by celebrating the 
hundredth anniversary of Webster's graduation 
there. It has been thought necessary to justify 
Webster for the " Ttli of March speech" ; and that 
justification has been wrought out in the admi- 
rable address of Mr. McCall. In that connection 
it is a little pathetic to read the early letter from 
Emerson in which he speaks with enthusiasm of 
the choice of Webster to Congress in 1822. I 
have cited it in an earlier chapter of this series. 

It is idle to say here a word about the 
influence which Emerson's writings have had 
in this country. I have already reminded the 
leader of Gladstone's interest in Emerson's early 



238 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

address. I was told the other day, by a man 
who seemed to know, that of the authorized edi- 
tions and of the cheap editions published since 
the copyright expired on his early books, nearly 
five million copies of the first series of the 
Essays have been printed in x\merica. I am 
told that in Scotland they are found on almost 
every table of the workingmen. I do not sup- 
pose that there are in America more than ten 
million homes. If the statement made to me is 
true, there is a copy of Emerson's essays for 
every two of these homes. 

Dean Stanley said to President Eliot the day 
he left America that he had heard, while he 
was here, some of our most eminent preachers, 
generally "evangelical" in denominational j)osi- 
tion, but that it made no difference what the 
man's name was, the sermon was always by 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. This experience of Dean 
Stanley's states well enough the theological 
position of all the sects to-day. The immanent 
presence of God here and now, the kingdom of 
God, is at hand — this is the essence of all the 
religion of America at this hour. Of Emerson 
himself it is interesting to say that while he 
declined to fulfil what were the formal func- 
tions of a clergyman, he always believed in 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 239 

churches and church attendance. He used to 
'• go to meeting " regularly in Concord until 
very nearly the end of his life. 

1 have one or two memories of the impression 
which he made in such matters in the Board of 
Overseers of Harvard Ccjllege. The graduates 
of Harvard College choose their own Board of 
Overseers ; and from the beginning of this cus- 
tom for two terms of six years each Emerson 
was a member of the Board. He attended the 
meetings very regularly, and gave a good deal 
of time to the details of the service. Many 
years before he died we had an enthusiast at 
the Board, Dr. Russell, who was very eager to 
abolish the rules, centuries old, by which stu- 
dents were obliged to attend chapel every day 
— compulsory chapel, we came to call it. Dr. 
Russell every year would introduce a movement 
to make chapel attendance voluntary. It would 
be favorably reported on by a committee, and 
would come before the full Board. The Board, 
however, generally speaking made up of men 
beyond Dante's middle point of life, were not 
very much impressed by the suggestions of this 
committee. However, there were plenty of 
young speakers to favor the motion, until near 
the end of the meeting Mr. Emerson would rise 



240 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and say substantially this : " Religious worship 
is the most important single function of the 
life of any people. I derived more benefit from 
the chapel service when I was in college than 
from any, perhaps from all, other exercises 
which I attended. When I am in Europe, I go 
on every occasion to join in the religious service 
of the people of the town in which I am. For 
this reason, I should be sorry to see the attend- 
ance at chapel made to vary with the wishes at 
the moment of the young men." Perhaps in 
writing out this speech, which I have heard 
five or six times, I make it longer than it was. 
No one ever cared to speak after this, and as 
long as he lived compulsory chapel was main- 
tained. I was a member of the Board myself 
through all those years, and I am sure that it 
was his influence which maintained that custom 
so long. 

For myself, I thought then, and I think now, 
that attendance at prayers should be placed in 
our colleges where elective studies are placed. 
I think a man who attends chapel six times 
a week should be credited for three hours of 
public attendance, exactly as if he had elected 
Greek for the same length of time. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 241 



ITKNRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 




SlMNKK AM) L()N(;i' KI.LuW. 



Longfellow came to Cambridge to be Smith 
Professor of Modern Literature in the spring of 
1837. 

I was a sophomore, and Samuel Longfellow, 
of my class, was my nearest friend. We lived 



vol.. II. — 11 



242 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

in close friendship until he died, half a century 
after. Our intimacy began on that August day 
when we were examined for college. I have 
told how my father went on horseback from his 
father's home to Williams College thirty years 
before. I did not go on horseback from Boston 
to Cambridge in August, 1835. No ! but we 
borrowed the horse and chaise of my uncle, who 
was a doctor in Boston — we rose at five — 
and presented ourselves, a trifle late, just after 
six o'clock, at the college, when the examination 
of freshmen was beginning. The other boys of 
my class at school had come in a special omnibus. 
But '•'• Uncle Doctor " had offered us the chaise, and 
we took it. " We " means my brother and I. 

I tell the story as an illustration of the sim- 
plicity of those times. For at about the same 
minute arrived at the steps of " University Hall " 
two other chaises, both from Maine. In one was 
Francis Brown Hayes, with his father, Judge 
Hayes, from South Berwick. In the other was 
Samuel Longfellow, with his father, Judge Long- 
fellow, from Portland. Both boys had started 
that morning before sunrise for the last dozen 
miles of their journey. In such Spartan manner 
did they prepare for an examination which 
covered thii-teen hours of that day. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 243 

The accident of our all Leing^ a little late 
brought us three into the twelfth or last section. 
And so began, an intimate friendship — as of 
three nmsketeers, if you please. Hayes appears 
as Hayes St„ Leger in one or two of my novels, 
lie picked up that name as a sort of college joke. 

Samuel Long;fellow and I walked tosrether, 
studied together, recited together, wrote verses 
together, and thus, naturally, when his brother 
Henry came to be Professor, I came to know him 
— well — better than the average sophomore did. 

The college, or " seminary," as the President 
used to call it, was then a little school of two 
hundred and fifty boys and men, whose ages 
ranged from thirteen years to thirty. They 
were taught in a sort of high-school fashion by 
two or three tutors, three or four instructors in 
French, German, Italian, and Spanish, by two 
professors in Greek and Latin, two in mathe- 
matics and physics, one in chemistry, one for 
rhetoric and English, and one for " Moral 
Philosophy." Into this snug little coterie came 
Henry Longfellow. As I say, T had a special 
opportunity to know him well from my friendship 
with his brother Sam. Perhaps this makes me 
exaggerate a little the sort of breezy life which, 
as I think, he brought into the older company. 



244 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



If tliey really thought there was nothing worth 
considering beyond the echoes of the college bell 
- — and most of them did think so — this hand- 
some young Smith Professor undeceived them. 




Abiel Smith. 

Founder of the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages 
at Harvard College. 



He was fresh from Europe. He could talk in 
French with Frenchmen, Italian with Italians, 
and German with Germans. The very clothes 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 245 

oil his back had been made by Pari.siau tailors, 
the very tie of his neckcloth was a revelation to 
the sedateness of little Caml)ridge. Then he 
was dead in earnest in his business, which was 
more than some of them were. 

This excellent Abiel Smith, who had given 
new glory to the name of Tubal Cain, had pro- 
vided for a professorship of modern literature. 
Men say it is the first such professorship which 
was ever known in any university in the world ; 
the business of colleges formerly having been to 
ju^aise the past and to say that it was better than 
tlie present. 

George Ticknor, a Dartmouth graduate, had 
))een the first to fill this chair, and lie had given 
it distinction. Now Longfellow, a Bowdoin grad- 
uate, had been called to take Mr. Ticknor's jjlace. 
In the traditions of the "seminary" he was the 
overseer of the foreign teachers who gave in- 
struction in their several languages, and he lec- 
tured on such subjects as he cliose. But this 
young Smith Professor pushed all traditions 
aside. He meant to teach himself. lie had his 
own views about teaching German, and when 
they told him there was no recitation-room for 
him, he said he would meet his class in the Cor- 
poration parlor in University Hall. This was 



246 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

a good deal as if some enterprising young Gama- 
liel had told a high priest that he would meet 
his class in the Holy of Holies. So Mr. Long- 
fellow said, however, and so it was. He told Sam 
that he wanted to teach some boys German iu 
his own way, and Sam recruited a dozen of us, 
who used to sit in the sacred chairs of the Cor- 
poration's guests, around the sacred table where 
we imagined that Constitution madeira or sherry 
of matchless brands were served for the sacred 
Seven of the Corporation. And there, with 
our friendly young professor, we recited Ger- 
man ballads which he had made us commit to 
memory. 

All this meant much freer intimacy between 
us and him than we had had with any of our 
instructors before. You could take your consti- 
tutional walk with Longfellow, you could play 
a game of whist in the evening wdth Longfellow, 
you could talk with liim with perfect freedom 
on any subject, high or low, and he liked to have 
you. I think myself that with his arrival a new 
life began for the little college in that very im- 
portant business of the freedom of association 
between the teachers and the undergraduates. 
In the English Cambridge and Oxford, the theo- 
retical relation of the graduates and the under- 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 247 

graduates is that of companions in the same 
society — what President EHot calls "this so- 
ciety of scholars." Up to Longfellow's time the 
relation at Cambridge had been simply that of 
teacher and pupil, to a very limited extent that 
of master and servant, as when Waldo Emerson 
took President Kirkland's errands for him. From 
Longfellow's day to this day I thhik the sense 
of companionship has worked itself into the 
habits and etiquettes of the college. This is as 
it should be. At the English Cambridge I have 
heard a freshman who had not been a month in 
Trinity College read one of the Scripture lessons 
in chapel. "He is one of us." 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Holmes was born in the parsonage where his 
father lived, the minister of the First Church in 
Cambridge. The house was an old-fashioned 
relic of the last century. He never forgot that 
Ward, the first commander of the Americans in 
the siege of Boston, lived there ; no ! nor that 
the detachment which marched from Cambridge 
to fight the battle of Bunker PI ill stood at atten- 
tion there, at sunset, wliile their chaplain offered 
prayer, on the IGth of June, 1775. 



248 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



In his attic room, which had become his study 

and workroom, he 
wrote the ballad of 
"Old Ironsides," 
which saved from 
destruction the frig- 
ate Constitutio7i — 
tlie pride of New 
England, and now 
the historical monu- 
ment of the short 
English war, as the 
Minotaur at Athens 
was of the days of 
Theseus. 

I used to tell 
Holmes that I 
thought I was the 
first schoolboy who 
ever repeated that 




Olivek Wexdell Holmes. 



poem upon the school platform. 

'' Nail to the inast her holy flag, 
Set every tattered sail, 
And give her to the God of storms, 
The battle and the gale." 

Have we no young j^oet who will save the 
New Hampshire forests for us to-day? 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 249 

This was nearly seventy years ago. In more 
than one spirited poem of those days of the end 
of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties 
of our century, Hohnes showed what was in him 
and how much could be expected from him. 
Those who have studied his poetry would say 
that he never wrote an3^thing better than those 
early lyrics which made men laugh or cry, as he 
chose, wliicli he printed when he was almost a 
l)()y in the college magazine. I think if a boy of 
twenty did such work now, it would be almost 
certain that he would at once be ranked as a 
literary man, say as Kipling is to-day, with 
hardly a thought of any other profession. But 
in 1830 I suppose men thought of literature and 
poetry more as Ben Franklin's father did. When 
Franklin had achieved his first success in verse, 
still a boy, his father told him that poets were 
always poor, and that he had better not risk 
himself in their ranks. I think it is better 
for Holmes and for the world that he had for 
twenty years the accurate and diligent train- 
ing of his profession. And I think he thought 
so. 

He says himself, more than once, that Lowell 
dragged him back into literature, when Holmes 
was more than forty years old, and was a (lis- 



250 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

tinguished professor of anatomy. He had early 
chosen the profession of medicine, he had studied 
in the Harvard Medical School and in Paris, and 
he entered upon the general practice of medicine 
in Boston. He is always spoken of there as Dr. 
Holmes, and this does not mean that more than 
one university had made him a Doctor of Laws. 
Very young to receive such an honor, he was 
made professor of anatomy in Dartmouth Col- 
lege, and afterwards promoted to the same duty 
in the lai^ger Medical College where he had 
himself studied. 

No man ever won more delighted interest in 
his pupils than he did in liis lectures. 

The New England Magazine, of late years 
revived to a very brilliant career, was founded in 
1831 by some young men named Buckingham, 
when Holmes was just beginning on active life. 
He had begun to write in it a .series of papers 
which he called " The Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
Table," when the magazine, for want of readers, 
expired. Twenty years after, when Lowell asked 
him to write for the first number of the new-born 
Atlantic Monthly he took the old pen and dipped 
it in the old ink, " As I was saying when you 
interrupted me." Those are the first words of 
the series of inimitable essays which, under differ- 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES -251 

ent names, lie tlien continued for many years, 
and which did so much to make him generally 
known. 

One characteristic of those papers, and of all 
he wrote and said, is the range, one would say 
boundless, of his observation, and of the illustra- 
tions he draws from it. One feels as if he had 
read everything and remembered everything. 
Here are nine successive titles, which I have 
taken, in their alphabetical order, from the 
index to his collected works. They compass 
sea and land, the past and the present : — 

" Agassiz." 

*' Age, Softening Effect of." 

" A Good Time Coming." 

" Air-pump." 

*' America, The English " 

*' Analou;ies. The Power of Seeinsr." 

"Anatomists." 

" Anglo-Saxons, do they die out in America." 

" Animal under It." 

The diligence, the accuracy, w^hich belong to 
the duty and work of a great physician appear 
in all his work. There is no splash-dash about 
it. He never tells you that he threw it off 
thus and so (though he often did), but he 
never speaks as if care, and the " file," as 



252 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Horace calls care, were disreputable. I am 
rather glad to say this as a warning to young 
writers. I think nothing is more sure to drive 
an office editor crazy than to have some young 
enthusiast say, " I threw this off last night," 
or, "I send you fresh from the pen" this or 
that. People who print magazines for a million 
readers do not w^ant to give them that which 
has been thrown off. It is much better to 
send them something which has seasoned in 
the back of your table drawer for one, two, 
or three years. 

I said in a public address the other day that 
I wished the right person would bring together 
the ballads and songs and scraps from longer 
poems which illustrate the history of the coun- 
try. Really it is pretty much all of the his- 
tory of the country which people will need to 
know in the twenty-fifth century. I was sitting 
with Holmes one day, when, with a good deal 
of pride, he took down his own Pittsfield poem 
of the year 1849 and read : — 

" gracious Mother, whose benignant breast 
Wakes us to life and lulls us all to rest, 
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, 
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time ! 
We stain thy flowers — they blossom o'er the dead ; 
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread ; 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 253 

O'er the red tield that trampling strife has turn, 
Waves the green phiniage of thy tasselled corn ; 
Our maddening conHicts scar thy fairest plain, 
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. 

Yet, O our Mother, while nncounted charms 
Steal ronnd our hearts in thine embracing arms, 
Let not our virtues in thy love decay. 
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. 
No ! by these hills, whose banners now displayed 
In blazing cohorts autumn has arrayed ; 
By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests 
The tossing hendocks hold the eagle's nest ; 
By these fair plains the mountain circle screens. 
And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines — 
True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil 
To crown with peace their own untainted soil ; 
And, true to God, to Freedom, to jMankind, 
If her chained bondage Faction shall unbind. 
These statel}'' forms, that bending even now 
Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough. 
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, 
The same stern iron in the same right hand, 
Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph rvui. 
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won I " 

" Is not that good prophecy," he said, "twelve 
years before the time ? " 

And here I will say that all four of these men, 
Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, and Lowell were 
kindness itself to young authors. No one would 
believe me if I told how much time Holmes 
gave, day in and day out, to answer personally 
the requests of young people who submitted to 



254 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

him their verses. I am afraid he was too kind. 
Of Emerson, in the same business, it used to be 
said that all his geese were swans. He was 
always telling you about some rising poet who 
was going to astonish the world. I ought to tell 
of the welcome which Longfellow gave to every 
tramp who came to his door, if only the tramp 
happened to speak a foreign language. And no 
literary wayfarer, however crude and unsophisti- 
cated, knocked at Holmes's hospitable gate who 
was not made welcome. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

Lowell was born within a mile of Holmes's 
birthplace, ten years after hhn. He never re- 
membered a time when he did not know him, 
and he was among the eager group of boys who 
heard with delight Holmes's Phi Beta Kappa 
poem in 1835. Those who are familiar with 
the writings of both will remember the enthu- 
siasm with which they turn l^ack to their Cam- 
bridge memories. Lowell would cross-question 
the old negro who remembered Earl Percy's 
march from Cambridge Bridge to Lexington : — 

" Old Joe is dead, who saw proud Percy goad 
His slow artillery up the Concord road." 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 255 

And he tells how that tale grew, from A^ear to 
year, so that if the old whiteheaded negro could 
have lived a little longer, 

" Vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, 
Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." 




Robert Carter, John Holmes, Estes Howe, axd James 

KrssELL Lowell at a Game of Whist. 

Photographed by Bhu-k in 185!). 



His boyhood's home is but little changed ; — 
a beautiful old house of the kind which ricli 
Tories lived in, and which we are apt in New 
Eno-land to call colonial houses. His mother 
was not in strong health, and his training fell 



256 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

much into tlie hands of an older sister, a charm- 
ing woman, who seems to have known earlj that 
she liad a poet to bring up. At all events, the 
training was just such as one might be glad that 
a poet should have. Lowell's love of nature is 
not in the least manufactured, and his acquaint^ 
ance with hang-birds and blue jays and brown 
thrushes is the friendship of a man who has 
known them from his childhood. So, in skating 
on Fresh Pond, in tracing up Beaver Brook, and 
in the freedom and ease of his knowledge of trees 
and flowers, you find, I do not say a country boy, 
but a boy who has been brought up in the open air. 

Of Lowell I have written quite at length in a 
separate volume.^ I will only speak here of one 
or tw^o charming personal characteristics to which 
I think even Mr. Scudder, in his interesting 
biography, and perhaps Mr. Howells, in his charm- 
ing reminiscences, do not call quite the attention 
which they deserve. This is not the place for 
criticising his work as an author. 

When I entered college in 1835, I shared the 
room Stoughton 22 with my brother Nathan. 
We lived there two years. From the very be- 
g-innino; I found that Lowell was almost a third 
partner in our company. He was in and out at 

^ " James Russell Lowell aud his Friends." 



I HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



g VALEDICTORY EXERCISES OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF 

! 1S38, 



T U E S U A V J U L V 



lit; voice of joy is hushed around, 
8lill is each heart and tongue; 
Ij'poft each sad and thoughtrul hrow 
The garb of grief is fluni^. 

VHOSCS. 

We meet to part, — no more t 
Within these sacred walls, - 

No longer Wisilom to her shri 
Her wayward t-!ii]drcn calls. 



1. VOLUNTARY. By the Bind. 
2. PRAYER. By rai Rev. Dr. Ware Jr. 
ORATION. By Jaues 1. T. Cooubuk. Boston. 
4. POK.M. Bv JiyssR. fx)WBLL.« Boston. 
ODK. Qi JoHv f. W. Ware. Camhridge. 
" AtiU Lang fhftu." 

tjWe part for aye, — at duty's 



Tt.M 



We met as strangers at the fount 
Whence Learning's waters flow 
And now we part, the prayers oi friend 
Attend the path we go. 
CHoans. 
And OQ the clouds that shade our way 

If Friendship's stax shine clear. 
No grief shall dim a brother's eye. 
No sorrow tempt a tear. 



We break the pleasing spell, 
Aad leave to other feet the haunts 
!.That we have loved so well. 

CUOBUS. 

Vet often when the soul is sad. 
And worldly ills combine. 

Our hearts shall hither turn, and br. 
One sigh for " Auld Lang .Syne.' 

Then, brothers, blessed be your lot, 
— A ^ L^'sy Peace forever dwell 

Around the hearths of those v\c 've 
And loved so long, — farewell. 

CHORUS. 

Farewell, — our latest voice 
A heartfelt wish of love, — 

That we may meet again, and form 
One brotherhood above. 




:1s up 



6. BENEDICTION. 



' On tccoont of the •baence of tha Poet tha Poem will be omitted. 



A TauK iliOM THH VALEDICTt)KV EXEKCISES OF LoWELL'S CLASS 
AT HAKVAKD. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 259 

all times from quarter past six, when morning 
prayers were over, up to any hour 3^ou please 
of the night. His father's house was, as I say, 
rather more than a mile away. Lowell had a 
college room, l^ut it was outside the yard, and he 
used our room almost as if it were his own, and 
I need not say that we liked to have him. I 
should say that he was at that time my brother's 
most intimate college friend. Their tastes were 
similar, their home life was similar, their friends 
in Boston and Cambridge circles were the same. 
From that time until he died I was on intimate 
terms with Lowell. After we all graduated, until 
he married, my father's house in Boston was his 
home, somewhat as Stoughton 22 and Massachu- 
setts 27 had jjeen in om- college days. 

I came to know very soon of the very wide 
rano-e of his readino; and of his dilis^ent interest 
in literature. His acquaintance with modern 
literature was far beyond what any of the rest 
of us had, even in the little circle of his friends. 
He was one of the charter members of Alpha 
Delta Phi, then a new-born literary society. It 
was really a literary society. There was nobody 
among our teachers, except Longfellow, who 
cared a straw whether we knew the difference 
between Voltaire and Volta, and we did our best 



260 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



work in the study of modern literature, not for 
the college classes, but for owe own gratification 
or for Alpha Delta. 

What we did in what we may call the range 
of modern literature, was done in our own way. 
At the evening literary meetings, Alpha Delta 




Jud<;e Lowell 



Phi, as early as 1837 I must have heard Lowell's 
papers on Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, 
and the other English poets, which afterward he 
printed in more completed form. When the time 
came for a Hasty Pudding Poem or for an any- 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 261 

thing-else poem, he was always, as a matter of 
course, asked to write it. And when he gradu- 
ated, we of that inner circle knew that he was 
to be the poet for the whole Nation, as we know 
now that he has been. When in Rome, in 1838, 
his dear old father was told that his classmates 
had chosen him class poet, he said : " Oh, dear, 
James promised me tliat he would quit writing 
poetry and would go to work." What father is 
there in a million wlio would not, on the whole, 
be glad if at seventeen years of age his son had 
made him such a promise! But alas and alas! 
where would our American world of 1902 be if 
James had been willing to hold to such well- 
meant intention ! 

I should like to correct definitely and squarely 
the impression that he was a lounger, loafer, or 
lazy in any regard. It is quite true that he was 
indifferent to college rank, and neglected such 
and such college exercises which he did not 
fancy, so far that he did not take high place 
in the rank list ; but he was in no sense lazy. 
When he read, it was not superficial reading ; 
and I am quite sure tliat he used the library 
when he was an undergraduate as very few of us 
did. In his after life he speaks somewhere of 
his working fifteen hours a day, when he was at 



262 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

the same time editor of the North American 
RevieiD aud of the Atlantic Monthly. At that 
time the exigencies of the Civil War called 
upon every man to do his best, and Lowell was 
not one of the shirkers. 

Nor, in my looking back on Mr. Howells's 
reminiscences and my own, and Mr. Scudder's 
Memoir, and the two volumes of Lowell's letters 
which Mr. Norton edited, do I think that as 
much has been said as ought to have been said 
of his unselfishness and constant generosity. I 
could give instance on instance, if it were best, 
of acts of pecuniary generosity on his part such 
as Philistines would say were wrong for a man 
of his uncertain income. It seemed enough for 
him to know that another man was in need for 
him to find out how to relieve it. I have some 
very interesting letters which show the tact 
with which his generosity enabled him to help 
men who were working their way through 
college and whom he meant to help somehow 
or other. 

It ought to be said, also, that his ready friend- 
ship for all sorts and conditions of men gave to 
him what he deserved, a world of friends. When 
my Outlook reminiscences of Lowell were brought 
together in a volume, I sat down one evening and 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 263 

wrote the names of two hundred and twenty per- 
sons, friends of his, who had given me their as- 
sistance in the composition. I do not believe 
there was ever any other biography which was 
written by two hundred and twenty people. But 
these papers had been published in twelve num- 
bers. I thought when I began that I had a good 
deal of material drawn from old friendship, from 
my brother's correspondence with him, and from 
that of a great many friends. But the first 
number was hardly published before I began to 
receive notes, sometimes from neighbors, some- 
times from distant strangers, who sent me this 
anecdote of Lowell or that, this picture or that, 
or this or that bright letter. As I say, before 
the twelve numbers were finished there were in 
this way at least two hundred and twenty coad- 
jutors in the preparation of those reminiscences. 
^' A man who has friends should show himself 
friendly." This is the wise admonition of the 
Book of Ecclesiasticus, savoring a little in 
Israelitish fashion of the weaklier side of 
Jacob's character. Certainly, Lowell justifies 
the reversing of the epigram. His life shows 
that the man who is friendly is sure to have 
friends. 



A REVIEW 



CHAPTER VII 
A REVIEW 

HERE is the conclusion of the whole matter. 
IDOl found the United States another 
Nation from what 1800 left it. 

In 1901 no man in his senses, who knew any- 
thing, would have consented to live as his grand- 
father lived a hundred years before. 

This means that in the United States, as the 
century went on, God and Man worked together 
as they had never worked before in the history 
of the world. 

And as a consequence, man with man worked 
too;etlier as thev had never done before. 

1. Open promotion for every child born into 
the world asserted itself as never Ijefore. 

2. To every man it was gradually made clear 
that he was a Son of God, and, if he chose, 
could partake of the Divine Nature. Men who 
can borrow Omnipotence are not apt to fail. 

The advance thus made in the three Eterni- 
ties, in Faith, Hope, and Love, accounts for the 

267 



268 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

advance, which has been infinite, in civilization. 
To work with God, to live in heaven, to work 
together and not seimrately, these laws, or 
habits, or systems — these are all. And All is 
enongh. 

1. Open promotion for each and all comes 
with universal suffrage and general education. 

Old John Adams, when he was making the 
Constitution of Massachusetts, said that he 
meant that every boy and girl born in Massa- 
chusetts should receive a liberal education. He 
did not mean that they should learn to read 
Latin badly and write Latin badly. He did 
mean that they should speak and understand 
the language of their time. '• If they were dili- 
gent in their business, they would stand before 
kings." And no matter who the kings asked to 
meet them, John Adams meant that the sons 
and dauo:hters of Massachusetts should be able 
to hold their own in the conversation. He 
meant that they should speak English and 
understand English as well as any man in any 
place. And he meant that there should be no 
"village Hampdens " or ''inglorious Miltons." 
He meant that if Abraham Lincoln, born in a 
log-cabin, among the poorest and, if you please, 
the meanest of mankind, should be the man 



A REVIEW 269 

needed in the advance of the country, he should 
have the education which the duty demanded. 
The country has not gained this yet, which 
John Adams asked for Massachusetts; but we 
are on the way toward it. When you see a 
chiss of boys entering at New Haven, or a class 
of girls at Northampton, you see that the coun- 
try insists that, as God lives, they shall have 
the best. Open promotion for all. 

2. To every man it has Ijeen made clear that 
God is on liis side, that God is his Father, and 
he is God's child. This was not clear in 1801. 

It is in such changes in the spiritual life of 
men up to 11)01 that you have the secret of that 
advance in vital power which accounts for the 
advance in physical resources. This accounts 
for the enlargement of all men's plans and 
possibilities. It explains so far the reasons why 
the world of 1901 is a better world to live in 
than the world of 1801. Even the faithful 
Christian of the beginning of the century was 
harrowed and haunted hy his feeling that God 
was angry with the world which he had made, 
and might w^ell be sorry that he had placed any 
men or women in it. To speak simply, men 
were tangled up in every effort to get forward 
by the twisted stems of their fathers' theology. 



270 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

It was like a man stumbling and sometimes 
falling in woodland when he catches his feet in 
greenbrier or moose wood. 

I remember as late as the Forties, w^hen I was 
talking with an enthusiastic girl well up in her 
" Five Points " of Calvin, that she cried out, " I 
trust the People : the People is always right." 
I said, wickedly, '^'How can you say that, when 
you believe that, of nature, all of the People 
are totally depraved and incapable of good ? " 
Poor girl ! To this hour I remember the pa- 
thetic reproach of her reply — her despair that 
the old theology would not even permit her to 
be a patriot. 

There are enough of the sermons of 1801 in 
print for any one who chooses to make a guess 
as to what the so-called religion of America was. 
So far as theology went, the preachers taught all 
hearers that they were born totally depraved 
and incapable of good. But it is fair now to 
say that no pulpit in America dared to make 
this announcement last Sunday, whatever that 
Sunday may be to the reader of these lines. 
Again, if the reader will struggle with a hundred 
or two of these sermons of 1801 or thereabouts, 
he will find that the appeal in tliem is an ap- 
]3eal to the individual sinner. He must reform 



A REVIEW 271 

his Avays. But at the present moment whoever 
will read in the Monday paper, in New York or 
in Boston or Chicago, the appeals of the pulpit 
on the day before, will lind no such thing. He 
finds a determination on the part of the preacher 
of religion that the kingdom of God shall come. 
Stated very simply, it would be fair to say 
that the real religion of to-day is the religion of 
the Lord's Prayer. On the other hand, the 
religion wliich asserted itself in pulpits a hun- 
dred years ago was the hard and bitter conclu- 
sion which John Calvin had arrived at. It ought 
to be said in his defence that his conclusions w^ere 
arrived at after a half-century of war, at a 
period when it seemed to men, indeed, as if the 
kingdom of heaven on earth was as impossible 
as he thought it to be. Now let the reader try 
to fancy ^vliat was the position a hundred years 
ago, say of a cliaplain in a jail, if there were any 
such person. How much or how little did that 
man believe that his ministrations with the pris- 
oners achieved anything ? Or imagine yourself 
going into a fig] it with Tammany, and having 
to rely upon a l)ody of people in New York of 
Avhom you knew that nineteen-twentieths were 
children of the devil wlio could not be reiren- 
erate. If you reallj- try to put yourself in the 



272 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

place of your great-grandfather, you will not 
wonder that the religious world of to-day is more 
cheerful and courageous than was his. Simply, 
if you know you are a child of God, as you do ; 
if you know that God works in you when you 
try to will and do of his good pleasure, — and 
this you do know now, — the world is a very 
different world from what it w^as when you were 
told once a w^ eek that you were the child of the 
devil. 

It is perhaps true that a few old gentlemen try 
to persuade themselves that for a few years more 
they may stammer out some old-fashioned sen- 
tences which defame God in despising man. 
But, really, the world of the new century, 
whether on the throne of the Pope or in the 
appeal of the come-outer, owns God as our 
Father, knows he is at hand, and asks him for 
everything. 

We must take care, then, not to regard the 
American Revolution as simply a change in the 
political relations of America. The war of the 
Revolution was the doom of Calvinism. Philo- 
sophically speaking, it would perhaps be enough 
to say that if men have equal rights on earth, 
they must have equal rights to heaven. Practi- 
cally speaking, the same thing was asserted when 



A REVIEW 273 

every man was compelled to take his gun on his 
shoulder and go out and fight King George. If 
you swept the Connecticut Valley, as in 1777 you 
did, of every boy and man from fifteen years of 
age to fifty-five, to go out "to fight Burgine," 
you could not say to those men and boys, when 
they came back, that they were all incapable 
of good and that nineteen-twentieths of them 
would certainly be damned. Or, if you said 
it, you almost knew that they would not be- 
lieve you any longer.' 

Without people's knowing it, therefore, Uni- 
versal Suffrage came in. The separate steps to 
it were considered so unimportant that it would 
be difficult now to write the history. Almost 
everywhere the local governments originally de- 
manded a small property qualification for the 
vote, though from the beginning no sucli qualifi- 
cation was exacted anywhere m ecclesiastical 
affairs. But this demand dropped out, more 
from the inconvenience of the property quali- 
fication than from any very eager protest. To 
this hour, the distinction between a property 

^ Tlie Freiichriian Chastelhix was in America two ov three 
years with Rochaiiibeau. lie says squarely that in his frequent 
travels back and forth from Newport to southern Virginia he 
never met a man of fighting age who had not served against 
the King. Wiiether he wanted to or not, he had to serve. 



274 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

qualification and universal suffrage seems to 
theorists of great importance ; but in America 
practically nine-tenths of the voters are men 
of property.^ 

When you thus create a pure democracy in 
what you call affairs of state, you cannot main- 
tain an aristocracy or hierarchy in what you call 
the affairs of religion. 

And here are the fundamental causes of the 
bleakness and imbecility of what people would 
call the religious literature of the quarter-century 
which follows the Revolution. Preachers cer- 
tainly felt that anything they had to say on the 
old lines did not much interest a people who 
were discussing the most important principles 
of social order, and by the results of such dis- 
cussion were organizing their civil communities. 

For the religious revolution implied in the 
changes between 1801 and 1901, it is impossi- 
ble to give credit to any one man, or any ten 
men, or any hundred men. The advance is an 
advance all along the line. We owe a great deal 
to the Methodist revival, which has met no check 
in America since the great days of AVhitefield. 

^ Thus, at the Clevelaud-Harrison election more individual 
holders of property paid taxes on that property in Massachu- 
setts than voted for all the candidates for the Presidency. 



A REVIEW 275 

We owe a srreat deal to the Swedenborgiaii, or 
the New Church. America owes a great deal 
to Murray and Ballon and the Universalists in 
the East, and to Campbell and the other movers 
in the West. The Congregational Church, both 
Evangelical and Unitarian, was really renewed 
l)y such prophets as Emerson and Channing, 
Bushnell and the Beechers. And the whole 
Englisli-speakhig world of every communion, 
that oi" the Church of Rome included, lias been 
inspirited by James Martineau. 

Meanwhile tlie People governed itself, as it 
should do in a democracy. Quite outside the 
cliatter and clatter of what is called Politics, 
quite outside of administrations and debates, 
and bills passed to the third reading, and a|)- 
pointments to office, the People was taking care 
of its own interests. It took care of tliem in 
such gigantic movements as those which multi- 
plied tlie exports of cotton from eight bags in 
1784 to two million and a half bales in 1850; 
in such movements as sent steamboats up into 
the fountain streams of rivers till they were 
leaving their passengers and their freight in 
creeks where they could not turn round ; and 
in such enterprises at sea as the fur trade of 
the Northwest, with the correlative commerce 



276 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of India, the whale-fishery which " whitened 
with its sails " all oceans.' 

The original and independent work in tlie 
realms of education and religion was of equal 
importance or more ; and, as I have implied, 
there is no coherent study of the century which 
does not recognize as fundamental the changes 
wrought in the education of the hearts and 
minds and souls of men. An entire revolution 
had been wrought in such education by the 
American Revolution and what followed. 

LIMITATIONS AND SELECTIONS 

I have been frank with the reader. I have 
invited him to look through my own keyhole 
upon this landscape of a hundred years' horizon. 
He must understand, I think, that through one 
keyhole you cannot see the whole. 

And even where my own personal recollections 
would have helped me — or the stores of manu- 
script and of pamphlet and scrap-book here in 
this house where I write — still it has been bet- 
ter to select only a few of the miracles of the 

^ Burke's fine phrase in which he says that the sails of 
the Nantucket fishermen "whitened l)oth oceans" means the 
northern and southern Atlantic. Not many years after the first 
Nantucket ship passed Cape Horn. 



LIMITATIONS AND SELECTIONS 277 

century, or of its misfortunes, or of the lives of 
a few of its charlatans and a few of its leaders, 
than to nibble at every cake in the cake-box. 

I was once asked to furnish in two thousand 
words a sketch of the literature of these same 
hundred years. It was intimated to nie that it 
would be well if I gave some account of each of 
tlie leading authors of the several years as they 
passed, telling the reader who were the fashion- 
able authors of their time. I had to begin, 
tlierefore, by classifying North and South Amer- 
ica, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and 
Russia, more than eiglit nations, and selecting 
the new authors whom people talked about in 
each year. With relentless hand, I cut down 
the list and averaged them at three in a 
year. Were it America in 11)(I2. and I could 
trust the advertising sheets of the magazines 
for which I was to write, there would have 
been fifty in a month. Now, 3 authors x 
l)y 8 nations, x again by 100 years, gave 
twenty-four hundred authors! Alas! while 
''' John Wolfgang von Goethe " could be ex- 
pi-essed in four words, many of the authors 
needed more and few were satisfied with less. 
If, therefore, I filled the order, with an average 
of three words for each of my twenty-fom- 



278 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

hundred names — where were the criticism and 
narration to come in ? 

Warned by this experiment, I have preferred 
to take a few incidents, men, and eras, and 
bravely and frankly to leave the rest for other 
pens and other memories. Hardest trial of all, 
even where my pen, or the more legible hand- 
writing of others, has written out the chapter, 
Atropos witii stern scissors has cut out the pages 
— and this reader will never, never know what 
he has lost ! " No one knows," says dear Bishop 
Whately, who is, by the way, one of the omitted 
heroes of the century, " what good things you 
have left out." 

So it is that the reader will find in these 
Memories of a Century nothing of the great epi- 
demics, but what is on this page ; almost noth- 
ing of the French War, with which the century 
began ; nothing of the Mexican, or Spanish, or 
many Indian wars ; next to nothing of the mar- 
vels of science, ^^^-^o^ographs, anaesthetics, cor- 
relation of forces, and all that have sprung from 
the new discoveries. There has been nothing 
of the great missionary enterprises, nothing of 
temperance, of prison reform, of the organization 
of churches or of charities. We discovered a 
continent and we annexed Alaska, of which there 



THE LAST CHAPTER 279 

is nothing here. The Kentucky and Virginia 
resohitions, distracting the politicians — the 
Federalist party dying — the "Know-Nothing" 
movement — all lived and died. Ah, there were 
many such all-important catastrophes of which 
nothing is said here. The treaties of Ghent, of 
Paris, of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and Paris again, 
and so many other treaties, and nothing about 
them. Cherokee and Seminoles, treaties " which 
should stand as long as the rivers run," nothing 
about them 1 Oregon and the Columbia River, 
and California and its gold, Montana and its 
silver! — nothing! These and as many more 
wonders, each of them worth a volume, have 
not been noticed here. 



THE LAST CHAPTER 

T am told that a certain arrogance sometimes 
expresses itself in my writing. For this 1 
apologize. But I do not believe that I could 
have contrived for myself a better ending for 
the marvellous century than came to me. I am 
pleased to see that people begin to call our cen- 
tury the MTjnderful century, as Dryden called 
the year of the three sixes " annus mu-abilis." 
All centuries in their time have been called so, 



280 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

and this has the capital stock of all the others 
to bank upon and to trade with. For 

*' Nature always gives us more 
Than all she ever takes away." 

A year before the end there had been one of 
the time-lionored discussions whether the cen- 
tury ended with the year 1899 or not. But 
now almost everybody had acquiesced in the 
proposition that no possible way of arranging, 
piling, or counting ninety-nine cents made them 
into a dohar. And it seems to me that the 
little world of literature, certainly the lesser 
world of companionship, accepted the end of 
the century with a certain seriousness which was 
encom^aging. This was satisfactory. 

The French had invented, many years before, 
the phrase "fin du siecle," and applied it to 
everything that was lawless, or without prin- 
ciple, or outside of conventionality — a sort of 
" devil take the hindmost " farewell to the nine- 
teenth century. But that phrase does not fairly 
express the feeling which thoughtful men and 
women had toward their old friend. For 
twenty years there had been Twentieth Century 
Clubs among the people who tried to be in the 
advance. The oldest which I know is the 



THE LAST CHAPTER 281 

Twentieth Century Club of Philadelphia. In 
Boston we have had for foiu'teen years the 
Twentieth Century Club of men and women, 
an important practical factor in the business of 
making people and things face to the front and 
giving them their marching orders. To belong 
to this Twentieth Century Club has meant and 
means that one hopes the world will be a better 
world, and that one means to help make it so. 
Among these clubs there is nothing of the " fin 
du siecle." 

For myself, I paid my respects to the end of 
the century as early as 1885. I was then in the 
city of Washington, and I was to preach on the 
Sunday before Mr. Cleveland\s inauguration. I 
foresaw many of the evils which that adminis- 
tration brought upon the country. No prophet 
could have seen them all. I chose to preach a 
sermon on the Twentieth Century, and I printed 
it on my return to Boston. Does it perhajDs 
forecast the altruism of the new century if I say 
that George Littlefield, my personal friend, set 
the types and locked up the chases ? I believe I 
never see those printed |)ages without a pleasant 
personal thought of him and his labor of love. 
In that sermon I laid down as the three initial 
necessities most urgent for the work of the 



282 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

new century with us : First the uplift of the 
school system so that it should educate men and 
boys, and not be satisfied with their instruction. 
Second, the systematic and intelligent transfer, 
from the crowded regions of the world, of men 
and women who should live in regions not 
crowded. Third, and necessary for everything 
else, the institution of a Permanent Tribunal for 
the nations of the world. I have reprinted the 
last half of this sermon in a volume of notes of 
my own autobiography. I speak of it now 
because it is the first which I happen to remem- 
ber of the uncounted series of essays which bear 
its title. 

Years before this I had heard Dr. William 
Dawson, the President of McGill University of 
Montreal, say of our generation, " What will 
the future say of us at the end of the nineteenth 
century ? " He said that our men of science 
had discovered the great principles of Nature's 
action. Their statement of these principles was 
as broad and at the same time as definite as 
Newton's announcement of the Law of Gravita- 
tion. And then he said that these same men 
who had made these discoveries were afraid of 
their own work. They did not dare use their 
discoveries for the benefit of mankind ! They 



THE LAST CHAPTER 283 

came to the edge of the ocean, as Newton said ; 
they knew the laws of its breakers and of its 
ebb and flow, and they did not venture to 
launch upon it. They hardly dared to paddle 
in the spray on the beach. 

" Why, these men of the nineteenth century 
were satisfied with the steam-engine, with the 
electric telegraph and telephone, with the trans- 
formation of tlie power of a waterfall into the 
electric current, actually ! With such trifles as 
these they had done enough; they hardly began 
to use the unconscious powers for the benefit of 
mankind." . 

Dawson said this in a Phi Beta Kappa oration 
at Cambridge. Not many years after I heard 
our great master of engineering, George Mor- 
ison, say on a like occasion almost the same 
thing. Indeed, the Phi Beta oration always 
gives a good cliance for the prophets. 

But whatever those backward-looking sons of 
time may say of us, and whatever Dawson said 
they ought to say, we have not been dissatisfied 
with the steps we are taking. Admiral Remey 
told me the other day that every weapon of 
offence used in the Spanish War in 1898 has 
been invented since 1865, unless, he said witli 
a smile, one excepts the dress sword of tlie 



284 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

officer. This can hardly be called a weapon of 
offence. It had won for itself the name of the 
" toasting-fork " two or three generations before. 
As we approached the year 1892, the prepara- 
tions for celebrating the fourth centennial of 
Columbus's discovery waked up a new chorus 
of speculation, now frivolous and now serious, 
as to the work and worth of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — much more serious than any which have 
left traces of the revolutionary period a hundred 
years before. 

It ought to do us no harm, to remember that 
in 1791 and 1792 the civilized world, generally 
speaking, did not appreciate America or the dis- 
covery of America very highly. On this side 
of the water nobody had any doubts. Every 
American from Sam Adams or Thomas Jefferson 
downward was sure that America was God's 
choicest gift to man. You would not find a 
woodchopper clearing his homestead by the 
Monongahela River, not six months from Ger- 
many himself, but would tell the passing traveller 
that America was the greatest country in the 
world, and very likely he would add that the 
capital of this country would probably be on 
his clearing. Nothing is more amusing tlian 
the rage which French and English travellers 



THE LAST CHAPTER 285 

of that prehistoric time express when they hear 
.such bragging in the midst of squalor and desti- 
tution. For on the other side of the ocean none 
but fanatics had any such notion. There is a 
httle })oem in whicli Soame Jenyns, a Tory poet, 
describes the eagerness with which the enfran- 
chised colonists, like so many runaway colts, 
would come back to l)eg for the protection of 
their great and good sovereign George III. 

AMERICA 

ADDRESSED TO THE REV. DEAN TUCKER 

" Crown'd be the man with lasting praise 
Who first contriv'd the pin 
To loose mad horses from the chaise, 
And save the necks within. 

" See how they prance, and bound, and skip, 
And all controul disdain ! 
They bid defiance to the whip, 
And tear the silken rein. 

" Awhile we try if art or strength 
Are able to prevail ; 
But, hopeless, when we find at length 
That all our efforts fail, 

" With ready foot the spring we press, 
Out jumps the magic plug, 
Then, disengag'd from all distress, 
We sit quite safe and snug. 



286 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

" The pampered steeds, their freedom gain'd, 
Run off full speed together ; 
But, having no plan ascertain'd, 
They ru.n they know not whither. 

" Boys who love mischief and a course, 
Enjoying the disaster, 
Bawl, stop 'em ! stop 'em ! till they're hoarse, 
But mean to drive them faster. 

" Each claiming now his nat'ral right. 
Scorns to obey his brother ; 
So they proceed to kick and bite, 
And worry one another. 

" Hungry at last, and blind, and lame. 
Bleeding at nose and eyes ; 
By suff'rings grown extremely tame, 
And by experience wise, 

« With bellies full of liberty, 
But void of oats and hay, 
They both sneak back, their folly see, 
And run no more away. 

" Let all who view th' instructive scene, 
And patronize the plan, 
Give thanks to Glo'ster's honest Dean, 
For, Tucker, thou'rt the man ! " 

The opinion or the sentiment of all classes of 
literary men as to the worth of x\merica was 
tested in 1792 by the Academy of Lyons. I 



THE LAST CHAPTER 287 

have referred to it in the first chapter of these 
papers. The Abbe Genty, a man now ahnost 
wholly forgotten, but who was then the Govern- 
ment's censor of literature, received the prize, as 
I have said. He had the sense to foresee the 
advantage which came to the world when, as Car- 
lyle said, democracy began its march around the 
world. But the other writers, whose papers 
have been preserved, made but a poor show. 
They had to admit that the wars which were 
born from American politics liad been disastrous 
to Europe ; they supposed that some diseases had 
been imported from America. They did not know 
enough of political science to understand how it 
was that the ceaseless flow of gold and silver 
into Europe reduced the purchasing power of 
coin so that for three centuries money debts had 
generally been paid in a currency of less value 
than that of the time in which they were con- 
tracted. But they did understand that some- 
thing bothered commerce and mercantile affairs 
and kept them in wild ferment wliich they did 
not comprehend. Even Franklin, in his com- 
mon-sense way, says that lie has observed that 
sugar is always dearer in nations which have 
sugar colonies than in nations which have 
none. 



288 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

The physical goods which came from America 
were thus reduced to Jesuits' bark and potatoes. 
I think none of those competitors for the Lyons 
prize had the grace to be thankful to us, even 
for tobacco. 

But in 1892 all this was changed. Indeed, as 
early as January, 1860, the porter who carried 
my valise to the steamship at Queenstown in 
Ireland fairly apologized to me that he had not 
gone to America himself long before. He wanted 
me to understand that, speaking generally, he 
knew that every man in Ireland who was not an 
idiot did go as soon as lie could. At this moment 
in which I am writing, when more than two 
thousand people from Europe arrive here in every 
day, it is clear enough that Europe now has 
learned the lesson of the danger of crowds and 
the value of deserts. As I once heard William 
Evarts say, the German farmer in Illinois is no 
better man than his twin brother whom he left 
in Prussia : the difference between the Illinois 
farmer and his brother is that he does not have 
to carry a soldier on his back. 

Yes, there is a great advantage in having 
white paper to write upon, and every day of 
every year of the century has been teaching this 
to America. 



THE EVENING AND THE MORNING 289 

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING 

As I have said, for me, personally, the century 
ended in a most dramatic way. 

Two centuries before, on the first of January, 
1701, dear old Samuel Sewall, the same who 
hanged the witches and repented of it so 
pathetically, determined that Boston should 
pay its compliment to the new century. In 
his diary for the first day of the month he 
says : — 

"Jan^' 1, 1701. Entrance of 18th Century. 
Just about Break-arday, Jacob Amsdeu and 3 
other trumpeters gave a Blast with the Trum- 
pets, on the common, near Mr. Alford's. Then 
went to the Green Chamber, and sounded there 
about sunrise. Bell-man said these verses, [My 
verses upon New Centmy], which I printed and 
gave them." 

Mr. Alford's was the highest house, in situa- 
tion, in Boston. It was where the new State 
House yard is, near Bowdoin Street. 

I was familiar with this interesting memoran- 
dum of Sewall's, and, as it proved afterward, 
there was an original copy of liis broadside in the 
Antiquarian Liljrary at Worcester, and another 
in tlie Boston Public Library. So, as the end 

VOL. II. U 



290 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

of the century approached, I sent to our friend 
Mr. Edwin Doak Mead, the President of the 
Twentieth Century Chib. Let me say, in 'pass- 
ing, that Mr. Mead is everybody's friend, and is 
one of those people who know how to Ijring 
things to pass. So, when anybody in Boston 
has anything of pubhc spnit to be done, a little 
out of the common way, instead of doing it him- 
self, he writes a note to Mr. Mead about it, and 
asks him if he cannot take care of it. You 
generally find that he has done all that is neces- 
sary before your note came. 

So I wrote to Mr. Mead. He ag^reed with me 
that the twentieth century ought to begin as the 
eighteenth began, and Governor Crane agreed 
with him. And Mead reprinted Sewall's ode, 
and made the selections which Moses had writ- 
ten for the purpose, in what men say is the old- 
est written j^oem, written I do not know how 
long before Homer. He arranged with the 
Handel and Haydn people, and the Cecilia peo- 
ple. Of course he lived at the very top of 
Boston, close to the State House, and there 
a few of us assembled as the last hours of the 
old year ebbed away. Here is the programme 
which he printed and gave them : — 



THE EVENING AND THE MORNING 291 

FROM CENTURY TO CENTURY 

oliservance of the passing of the nineteenth 
Century, and the Coming of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury, BY the Twentieth ('entury Club and the 
Public, before thf State House, Boston. 

The exercises trill het/in at quarter of ticelve, Monday 
flight, December 31, 1000. 

Trumpets, from State House Balcony. 

Hymn, Sung by the Assembly 

" Be thou, God, exalted high ; 
And as thy glory fills the sky. 
So let it be on earth displayed. 
Till thou art here as there obeyed." 

Selections from the Ninetieth Psalm, Read by 
Edward Everett Hale. 

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all genera- 
tions. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever 
thou liadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 

" A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday 
when it is past, and as a watch in the night. 

" The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; 
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet 
is their strength labor and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, 
and we fly away. 

" So teach us to number our days that we may apply our 
hearts unto wisdom. 

" satisfy us early with tliy mercy, that we may rejoice 
and be glad all our days. 

" Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory 
unto their children. 



292 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

" And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us ; 
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us ; yea, 
the work of our hands establish thou it." 

Samuel Sewall's Hymn, Written fob the Observ- 
ance IN Boston of the Dawn of the Eighteenth 
Century. 

Clionis 

" Once more, our God, vouchsafe to shine; 
Tame Thou the rigor of our clime; 
Make haste with Thy impartial light, 
And terminate this long, dark night. 

" Let the transplanted English vine 
Spread further still ; still call it thine. 
Prune it with skill; for yield it can 
More fruit to Thee, the Husbandman. 

" The false religions shall decay, 
And darkness fly before bright day ; 
Till men shall God the Lord adore. 
And worship idols vain no more. 

" So Asia and Africa, 
Europa, with America, 
All four, in consort joined, shall sing 
New songs of praise to God our King." 

Silence until the Stroke of the Midnight Hour 
AND THE Sound of the Trumpets. 

The Lord's Prayer, Said by All the People. 

" America," Sung by the People. 

Trumpets. 



THE EVENING AND THE MORNING 293 

Here are my notes of the next morning, and 
they shall be the last of these Memories of a 
Century : — 

" The boys of the Commonwealth Club came 
to escort us to the State House, and did. 
This was quite as well, for the street was 
crowded with people, and it was with difficulty 
that the police made way for us into the Gov- 
ernor's room — Mrs. Hale, and E. and I, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Mead. The Governor was as 
pleasant as always. We waited till just quar- 
ter before twelve, and then worked our way 
through the crowd, on the balcony, looking 
down on the State House yard. The balcony 
had never seen such a company before, for 
here was a chorus of nearly two hundred 
voices, selected from the Handel and Haydn 
and the Cecilia Society. 

" A perfect sea of upturned faces was below. 
The spectacle was magnificent. The State House 
yard and all the streets, in every direction, were 
crowded as far as you could see. The lights of 
the carriasres on both sides of the streets stretched 
off into the dark horizon. The people were too 
closely crowded to move. Indeed, nobody wanted 
to move. They were quiet, and absolutely intent 



294 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

on what was going on in our balcony. For me, 
there were two men with cornets on my right, 
with only the Governor between, and two on 
my left. And while they played, I could hear 
nothing whatever, either from the balcony or 
from below. All our watches were exactly right. 
Every one had been careful about that ; and at 
exactly fifteen minutes before twelve, at an 
order from the chorus-master, the four trumpets 
sounded. They played what in camp is called 
' taps,' meaning the closing strain for the day. 
Old soldiers recognized it at once as the fit close 
of a century. [I had last heard it at Bermuda 
Hundred, on the 30th of May, 1864.] 

[Sewall, the old Chief Justice, called his men 
trumpeters, and we called ours so. The instru- 
ments were, in fact, what are now called " cor- 
nets." But I believe they are substantially the 
same as the trumpets of his time.] 

" The playing of taps lasted a few minutes ; I 
think it was followed by a little hand applause. 
Every one then joined in the first verse of Old 
Hundred, ' Be Thou, God, Exalted High ! ' I 
say every one, for we had, as I say, a full chorus 
of two hundred voices. But I do not think that 
there was a general chorus from below. I only 
heard the trumpets. I read the appropriate 



THE EVENING AND THE MORNING 295 

verses from the Ninetieth Psalm. People were 
still as death. The balcony and people made a 
good sounding-board. My voice was all right, 
and 1 read very slowly. I have since seen people 
who were nearly as far as Winter Street who 
heard me. [I have been asked a hnndred times 
if I used a megaphone. But here is simply an 
illustration of the power of the human voice if 
the listeners will keep still.] Then the chorus 
sang two verses of Sewall's hymn. There was 
time enough and they sang two more. Then 
another strain from the trumpets, and then a 
hush, absolute and very solemn. King's Chapel 
bell struck twelve very slowly, and between the 
strokes our trumpets sounded. There were 
several seconds between the strokes. 

" I said the Lord's Prayer, and here I was con- 
scious that other people joined. The trumpets 
played ' America,' and here people joined in very 
cordially. I said, ' God bless our city, our State, 
and our country.' And this was to me as re- 
markable as anything in it all. People turned 
almost silently to go home. Indeed, the whole 
passage of the half-hour had the devout impres- 
sion of a service at church. 

" Looking back upon it I cannot help feeling 
that it all showed curiously well the serious 



296 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

foundation of the life of our people. I do not 
think they thought of it as a religious service 
when they came, but they all did when they 
went away." 

And so I will bid this faithful reader good-by. 
Some library will preserve this volume, and it 
carries with it my charge to my sons' grandsons, 
that in 2001 one of them shall write his Memo- 
ries of the Twentieth Century. 



EIGHTY YEARS 



CHAPTER VIII 



EIGHTY YEARS 

nj^HIS book in its first edition was "noticed" 
J_ very kindly by many critics, some of whom 
had read it while others had not. One of tlie 
kindest things 
said of it was 
that the Index 
was admirably 
made, and that 
one name did not 
appear in that 
Index. This was 
the name of 
Edward Everett 
Hale. 

This friendly 
remark was true, ccwh,.,,, i,m i.y ...e s. s. Mccmre co. 

Edwakd Everett Hale as a Young 

and it was by no man. 

accident that in From an early portrait. 

the book itself I did not appear either as a 
hero or in any function more important than 
that of a spectator, or a scene shifter. Be it 

299 




300 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

observed that when the scene shifter does his 
work best he is not seen. I had undertaken to 
write fourteen chapters of what I remembered 
best of the most important passages in our own 
history in a hundred years. I might have seen 
them or no, — I was to write what I remem- 
bered. 

Now that the book is to be published anew in 
what is really a revised and corrected edition, I 
have been asked seriously, by friends and by 
publishers, to add two or three chapters, one 
especially about events and surroundings in my 
own personal life, — such as may explain, in a 
fashion, how I came to look on men and things 
through those particular keyholes. I need not 
say that it is a pleasant thing to do this. 
Granted a willing hearer, most of us like to talk 
about our own old times. And there is always 
this advantage in our modern literature, that no 
compulsion bids the reader read anything. Even 
a critic or writer for the press does not have to 
read the book which he reviews. As dear Presi- 
dent Lincoln said so well, it will be sure to be 
liked by those who like that sort of thing. And 
there is no Act of Parliament about it. No 
man is compelled to buy or to read. 

I doubt if I should write these lines as I do. 



EIGHTY YEARS 301 

were I not at tlii.s moment under the charm of 
dear Addington Symouds's hiography. No ! I 
sliall not go so far as he does in telling of the 
dreams of boyhood, — or even of the garden 
flowers at Clifton. I should not write of them 
with the tender love which gives such glamour 
to his book. But those who like that sort of 
thing will like what I shall sa}' of the outside 
of my own life, — how it was that it l^ecame the 
business of the same man to sleep under the sky 
in the valley of the Pemigewasset, and to teach 
a schoolboy where an accent falls in a Greek 
verb. For those, then, who like that sort of 
thing, the six thousand words of this chapter 
are written, in compliance, as the advertisements 
say, with the requests of other people. The 
chapter may be taken as a sort of preface at the 
end. 

In Mr. Symonds's recollections of his child- 
hood, his precise wish is to recall those mat- 
ters of observation or of reflection which most 
biographers regard as too trifling to deserve 
memorial. I believe that is just what I am try- 
ins; for here. The detail u;iven in " Who's Who," 

O 7 

or in other regulation biograph}', is given quite 
fully enough in some papers which I made 
at Mr. Horace Scudder s request, and printed. 



302 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I do not say published, as " A New England 
Boyhood." ' 

The pages in this reader's hands are written 
with the hope of putting a little flesh and blood 
on that skeleton. 

In an earlier chapter of this book are some 
references to my early boyhood. I am some- 
what encouraged when I recollect that I cannot 
remember Lafayette, by observing that one of 
the English gentlemen who crossed with Mr. 
Moseley the other day supposed that Lafayette 
was a mayor of New York in 1825. As a mat- 
ter of the study of memory, it seems to me curi- 
ous that while I remember that hobby-horse with 
real hair for tail and mane, on which I rode in 
the house where I was born, I have no recollec- 
tion of what to a child must have been an im- 
pressing event — the removal of the hobby-horse 
and everything else to the house the next door 
but one on the corner of School Street. I do 
remember the first time when I left the nursery 
of my own motion without being hindered. I 
was so small that I had to stand on tiptoe to 
reach the brass latch of the room. After I was 
a Doctor of Divinity, when they were demolish- 

^ The firm which bore the imprint blew up into thin air the 
day when the bookbinders delivered the edition. 



EIGHTY YEARS 303 

ing the house, the builder of the Parker House 
met me in the street hard })y aud asked me if 
there were no memorials of the house which I 
wanted. 1 told him I wanted that latch, and he 
sent a workman up to cut out that part of the 
frame of the door on which the latch was fas- 
tened. The latch is now just above my easy reach 
on the door of my pamphlet room. I recollect 
distinctl}^ the feeling with which I prepared a 
throne for the Saviour after I had been tauglit 
in the h}'mn-book the direction, " Let every 
heart prepare a tlu'one and every voice a song." 
I was well enough acquainted with his love to 
little children to know that he would be satis- 
fied with the arrangement I had made of my 
'' high chair," a chair which had been promoted 
to our play room after I no longer needed it at 
the table. Nobody understands the mechanics 
of memory, but I agree with Mr. Symonds that 
the more we can preserve all such childish recol- 
lections the better eventually for the science of 
memory. It does seem to me curious that I 
recollect little details about the colors of the 
ribbons in an old wooden desk at school of 
which the hinges were broken, while I have no 
recollection whatever of learning the process 
of reading. 



304 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

I have told a story of my first visit to Cape 
Cod. I remember my terror, at Sandwich, 
when I found myself left alone on the outside 
of a grist mill, — a mill which I think is still 
standing. My father and mother had gone 
into the mill and I thought I should never see 
them again. I remember the shape and pat- 
terns of the little glass toys which they made 
for us at the Glass House. I remember the 
names of Miss Tryphena Fessenden and Miss 
Tryphosa Fessenden, ladies who welcomed us 
so cordially to Sandwich. But I have not 
the slightest recollection of the long stage ride, 
more than fifty miles, to Sandwich or back 
again. One would say that this would have 
impressed a child's memory if anything would. 

To Boston readers to whom the place or the 
scene has any interest, I may say that the space 
between Tremont Street and Beacon Street 
north of the Granary Burying Ground was in 
those early days of my boyhood taken up by 
three large gardens or orchards which had old 
wooden houses upon them. Mr. William H. 
Eliot conceived the plan of the Tremont House 
in 1828. We children all rallied at the La- 
fayette window to see the corner-stone of the 
Tremont House laid. At about the same time 



EIGHTY YEARS 



305 



the corner-stone of the Tremont Theatre was 
laid on the spot which is now occupied by the 
Tremont Temple. The proprietors of the 




Nathan Halk, .Ik., as a Yorxr; Max. 

theatre offered one hundred dollars for an ode 
to be recited on the occasion of the first per- 
formance. The friends of my boyhood know 
ine well enough to know that I and my brother 



306 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Nathan determined to compete, I being five 
years old and he nine or ten. All that I recol- 
lect of our ode is that having described the 
experience of Thespis and his friends in acting 
in a cart in Athens the ode said that 

" in a later age 
The actors richer built them up a stage," — 

the joke being on a cart and stage. The work 
of the ode advanced so far that onr mother had 
to scold us and tell us how absurd it was. As 
matter of history, I may say that the Rev. John 
Pierpont received the prize, and that his writing 
an ode for a tlieatre was one of the scandals raked 
up in an ecclesiastical trial. Another of the 
scandals was that he invented a kitchen stove. 
This was thouQ-ht not clerical. A definite 
accusation on these subjects appeared when an 
ecclesiastical council was convened to try him. 
As I am on my confessions, and we are trying 
to find out what children remember and what 
they do not, I will say that I remember the 
details which I have spoken of, the 17th of 
June, 1825, which happened in our house. I 
remember in the other house waking with my 
brother at one o'clock in the morning and 
looking out of our v/indow to see the "stage" 



EIGHTY YEARS 307 

which was to carry my uncle to Northampton 
that day. I recollect the parting from Mr. 
Judd and his wife when they went as mis- 
sionaries to the Sandwich Islands in 1828. I 
remember the military funeral of my Uncle 
John Everett in 1826. 

In the " New England Boyhood," I have de- 
scribed our amusements. Meanwhile at home 
we were reading everything. Before I was 
eleven I had read Mungo Park and Clai> 
perton, Franklin's Voyages and Parry's, which 
were going on at that time. I had attacked 
Shakespeare and found it dull. I had been 
made to read more or less of Hume, which 
I found equally dull. But I had under my 
lee always a well-selected library. In our own 
private room, the attic of tlie house, we had 
" The Boy's Own Book," one volume of " Don 
Quixote," " The Treasury of Knowledge," the 
sequel to " Harry and Lucy," Grimm's " Fairy 
Tales," and immense files of bound newspapers 
to which we occasionally went back. 

But we were too much encj:ao;ed in our own 
occupations to read a great deal about other 
people's. We had to invent perpetual motion, 
make electrical machines, build locomotives, act 
plays, occasionally paint portraits of the school- 



308 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

girls on the walls, set type, aud print a weekly 
magazine. 

It was a great grief to me when my older 
brother, at the age of thirteen, got hold of the 
Waverley Novels. For he was apt then to 
retire to one of the lower rooms to read his 
"Guy Mannering" or his " Ivanhoe," and I was 
left alone. 

Among other duties of this kind which required 
our attention is one which has been of a certain 
service to me since. My father had a collection 
of voyages and travels, which included a transla- 
tion of Krusenstern's account of his voyage in 
the Pacific. This included a vocabulary of the 
language of the Marquesan Islands. We thought 
it proper to invent a grammar for this language 
and to write an alphabetical dictionary from 
the vocabulary. Then, of course, we had to give 
it a literature and to write in it our letters to 
each other. Of this literature all I now remem- 
ber is a translation in the Marquesan language 
of Coleman's sons; in his " Mountaineers " : — 

''When the little drummer beats to bed." 

In the language of the Nukahivas this ap- 
pears as : — 

" Womar t'iti enata bacha epoku." 



EIGHTY YEARS 309 

When Mr. Herman Melville subsequently pub- 
lished his book called " Typee," we were quite 
at home in the Marquesan Islands. I am afraid 
we were Imperialists before om- time. It was a 
great grief to us to read that when Porter took 
possession of the islands in 1814 tlie United 
States did not choose to keep them. But all this 
is saying too much of boyish enterprises. 

My father's was a newspaper office, and he 
was engaged as president of the Boston and 
Worcester Railroad in building that road, which 
was the beginning of the western line of com- 
munication for Boston. We were a (ji:reat deal 
with him, and followed up with great interest 
all such enterprises. The railroad was open in 
the year 1833, when I was eleven years old. 
We boys were favorites with the engine drivers. 
The rules were sim[)le, and I have had many a 
ride to Newton and back on the tender of the 
Meteor engine. Of this engine I have published 
some notes in another chapter. 

Meanwhile I nudlcd along at the Latin Scliool 
as well as a boy rather younger than his class 
could be expected to, when, as I have said, he 
looked upon the whole matter with a certain 
condescension. I made friends who have been 
very dear friends through life. I did not get a 



310 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Franklin medal, which is the highest honor given 
to such boys. I was always marked low for 
declamation. I had not a quick verbal memory, 
but I liked my masters and they liked me. In the 
last year of our life there the authorities thought 
the strain was too much on me, and I only went 
to school a part of the time. I remember as a 
consequence of this that when we were to go to 
Cambridge for our examinations at college, I had 
never read the first six books of the " yEneid." 
I wanted to say to the examiners that I had 
read them, and I spent one Sunday afternoon on 
the ridge-pole of our house in Central Court, read- 
ino; them throus-h. This is the oris-in of the 
story which got into print that in those days I 
read the *' ^Eneid " in a day. The truth was that 
I could not have read the six books through in 
three hours if I had not been well drilled on the 
other six. 

I jumbled through college in a very happy 
way, making friends who have been my friends 
all my life since, mostly, of course, in my own 
class, but I had the great advantage of the 
personal acquaintance of the gentlemen named 
in other chapters. 

I left college, fortunately, as I still think, at 
an early age. This enabled me, so to speak, to 



EIGHTY YEARS 311 

loaf in the preparation for a permanent profes- 
sion. I was two years ca junior master in tlie 
Boston Latin School. In these years I read quite 
faithfully in what were considered the books 
required for the ^preparation for a minister's life. 
I attended some lectures at Cambrido;e, a few at 
Newton Theological School, and was permitted 
to visit with absolute freedom in the house of 
our minister, Dr. Samuel Kirkland Lothrop. In 
this period I spent the greater part of a year 
with my father as his secretary, at the time 
when we were in Pennsylvania together, confer- 
ring with the leaders of that state about the 
measures to be taken for the redemption of their 
foreisrn credit. I have often said that the best 
training I ever got for my profession was in that 
year of business life, when my dealings were with 
editors and lawyers and masters of transporta- 
tion, when I was studying wire ropes, and in- 
clined planes, and traction on canals. To this 
hour, when I am asked about tlie education for 
the ministry, I say that Jesus began to preach 
when, as is supposed, he was about thirty years 
old. But for me, I preached my first sermon as 
early as 1841 in the "Warren Street Chapel, in 
Boston. I was licensed to preach in October, 
1842, and preached my second sermon in Newark, 



312 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

New Jersey. But all this was more or less 
sporadic ; and my first long engagement as a 
preacher was in the city of Washington, begin- 
ning with the last Sunday in September, 1844, 
and ending in February, 1845. The Northern 
party had been defeated in the election of Mr. 
Polk, and I was just fool enough to refuse to 
stay in Washington to see his inauguration. I 
had about a hundred dollars at that time, and I 
was tempted to buy a horse, and ride North to 
my home in Boston. I have been sorry ever 
since that I did not do it. For I have learned 
that no man knows America unless he has seen 
it with his eyes. But the mud was very deep, 
and I resisted the temptation for so Quixotic an 
enterprise — the more so, I think, because I had 
no Don Quixote to go with me. 

We had just annexed Texas after a debate of 
which I heard a great deal in Congress. I 
thought that the remedy for the danger to the 
nation was in a large emigration from the North 
into Texas. In the chapter above, on the annex- 
ation of Texas, I have said something of my first 
pamphlet and my wish to emigrate at that 
time. (Footnote, page 152.) 

After this winter s life in Washington I spent 
the greater part of a year in Worcester, Massa- 



EIGHTY YEARS 



313 



chusetts. There were many reasons why I sliould 
be happy in that place, and T aooepted a call to 




Edward Everett Hale in ISW. 
From the painting by Kifliard Hinsdele. 

be the first minister of a new church. I was 
ordained there on the 29th of April, 1846, and 
began a very happy experience of life which 



314 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

lasted ten years. I recollect that somebody said 
at the tmie of my ordination that there was not 
a gray hair in the congregation, and I believe 
this was true. It was not true a week after, 
when persons who had not cared to join in the 
initial movement but had always intended to 
join, became members. It was a small congrega- 
tion at that time, of people who were very much 
interested in it. As we used to say, there -was 
no dust in the pulpit cushions. There were no 
traditions to be maintained. We were simply 
people who had tumbled together in a real wish 
to set things forward, and who did not believe in 
any of the mechanical theology of the centuries 
before us. I was soon asked to serve on the 
School Committee, and I did so. But I said 
what was true, that there were plenty of young 
lawyers and young doctors who would be glad to 
serve on the School Committee, and that I had 
rather serve on the Board of Overseers of the 
Poor. The managers of such things took me at 
my word, and I was an Overseer of the Poor at 
Worcester for two years. That was about the 
period of the Irish Famine, and we were all up 
to our eyes in making arrangements for the 
incursion of Irish emigrants. 

Looking back upon the half-century in which 



EIGHTY YEARS 315 

I have had more or less public duty, such as falls 
upon a minister in New England, I am tempted 
to note the entire change for the whole country 
which has been wrought In' the European emi- 
gration to America of those years. As late as 
when I was in college people began to mark the 
annoyances which were caused by the arrival of 
Irishmen who were, so to speak, imported for the 
purpose of working on the railroads then in prog- 
ress. I have been told, and I believe, that in 
1821, when the Western Avenue and Mill Dam 
were built in Boston, Irish emigrants were sent 
for and, so to speak, imported to work in that en- 
terprise. This is the earliest instance I know of 
such organized emigration. Every man A\ho 
thought himself sensible tried to turn the tide 
back, precisely as Mrs. Partington tried to sweep 
back the English Channel with her broom in 
Sydney Smith's parable. It was just as the 
Federal leaders of Xew Ensrland in 1804 wished 
that they could check the emigration to the West. 
There was a society founded in Boston for the 
purpose of tm'ning emigrants back, which sent 
circulars out to Ireland in that view, to warn 
people against coming. In this society a near 
friend of mine was agent. But you cannot 
make a nation like ours, in which one man shall 



316 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

have the same right before the law as another, 
and then expect to keep out from it the people 
of other countries where the laboring man does 
not have the same rights as another. As soon 
as the laboring men find out that your nation 
exists, they will come to it. On this principle 
simply has followed the wave of foreign emigra- 
tion which now brings to us a million people every 
year from Europe and Asia. 

I was myself already settled in parish work. 
Great stimulus was given to the emigration from 
Ireland by the " Irish Famine." We had com- 
mittees, even in towns as small as Worcester, for 
the purpose of raising money for provisions to be 
sent out to Irelaud, and the distress there was 
materially alleviated by such supplies. By one of 
those charming bits of poetry which always take 
hold of the fancy of the nation in great exigen- 
cies, it proved that the Jamestoivn and the Mace- 
donian, ships from the United States Navy, could 
be sent with supplies. Captain Robert Bennett 
Forbes, the brother of John Murray Forbes, offered 
to take charge of the Jamestown and surrounded 
himself with other fine seamen, some of whom 
were men of the highest position and social rank. 
One of the edifying incidents which show na- 
tional character appeared when the citizens of 



EIGHTY YEARS 



317 



Cork ill Ireland, on the arrival of this vessel with 
food supplies, invited them to a public dinner. 
Probably not one of them saw the humor of the 
incident. 

Sjoeaking to a large audience of young men 
the other day, 1 
told them that I 
wished some of 
them would un- 
dertake the seri- 
ous study of the 
moral and spirit- 
ual effect which 
what are called 
mechanical or 
physical inven- 
tions have pro- 
duced upon tlic 
world in the last 
hundred years. 
The Power which 
makes for right- 
eousness has chosen to use the material things 
and what are called discoveries and inventions 
in physics for the great moral and spiritual 
purposes of the century. Things which perish 
in the using have contributed under His will 




CuiKCH AT W()iukstp:r, Mass., at 
WHRH Dr. IIai.k officiated in 184(5. 



318 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to the infiuite enlargement of thought and of 
endeavor m men's rehitions with each other. 
Rehgion is on a higher plane because of physi- 
cal invention and discovery. Whoever writes 
these essays will have to put in a sub-chapter 
to show how our export of cotton to England 
and France contributed directly to the back- 
ward flow of that wave which brings us now 
this million people a year as an addition to 
our population. See how this accounts for the 
moral sociological changes which are central 
in the history of America for a hundred years. 
When Eli Whitney created the cotton crop of 
the Southern states the exports to the other 
parts of the world were so small that in Jay's 
Treaty of 1794 they were not so much as 
alluded to. The export of cotton from the 
beginning had been hardly a hundred thou- 
sand bales in ten years. In four years before 
1830 the export was three hundred thousand 
bales. By 1850 the average was between one 
and two hundred thousand bales every year. 
The average weight of a bale is called four hun- 
dred and forty pounds. 

As has been said, in 1821 we began to "im- 
port " Irishmen for work on public improvements. 
But how was this emigration possible ? It was 



EIGHTY YEARS . 319 

possible because we were sending out sliips 
larger and larger every year, which had high 
between-decks adapted specially to the piling in 
of these bales of cotton. When these between- 
decks were relie\ed of tlieir burden, we had 
nothing to bring back excepting the manufac- 
tured goods of England which took but little 
space. It seems queer now to say that Ave 
ballasted our ships with iron rails from the 
English mines. One little step enabled the 
owners of these ships to arrange their lofty 
between-decks with berths for passengers, the 
carriage of whom really cost them absolutely 
nothing. For the ships had to come back. 
There was no cargo to fill tliese great saloons 
which had for size no rival even in the palaces 
of the emperors. The ship-owners at once 
" caught on," to use our own excellent lan- 
guage. They fitted up the great cotton ships 
with berths and tables and table fm^nitm^e, and 
were able to bring over as many passengers as 
tlie law would permit them. The legislators 
of both countries were prompt to regulate this 
commerce in men and women; and to tliis liour 
the laws for the health of passengers during 
their residence on shipboard are in most cases 
better than the laws of the American cities 



320 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

for the health of such people after they have 
arrived on land. Horace's wails regarding the 
sea and its dangers are so far contradicted. 

The particular matter which occuj)ied me was 
the arrangement by which those persons M'ho 
became paupers after their arrival here should be 
cared for, not by the small towns where they 
might happen to live, but under a general sys- 
tem by the authorities of the state in Massachu- 
setts. I was told at the time, and I should be 
glad to think it is true, that our admirable state 
establishments at Tewksbury, at Rainsford Island, 
at Bridgewater, and at Monson owe their exist- 
ence to a series of puljlications which I made 
when the Irish Famine first directed our atten- 
tion to the subject. 

In 1854, as the reader of Chapter IV in this 
volume knows, what used to be called the 
Nebraska Bill passed the Congress. Up till that 
time the adjustment made by the Missouri Com- 
promise in 1820 had made freedom the future 
law of all states which might be created north of 
the parallel of the southern line of Missouri. 
That is to say, the North gave way so far 
as to say Missouri may be a slave state but there 
shall be no other slave states north of this 
parallel. If the Southern leaders had been will- 



EIGHTY YEARS 



321 



ing to hold by this " compromise," the Civil 
War could have been long postponed. But, as I 
have said in Chapter IV, with sublime audacity 
they attempted to overthrow this "compromise." 




Eli Tiiavkk. 



With equal audacity, and with pluck and deci- 
sion which cannot be praised too much, Eli 
Thayer organized the Massachusetts Emigrant 
Aid Company. As I have said in that chapter, 
I was ahve to the principles of his plans; I 



322 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

reported every day to him, and I was his Man 
Friday for that summer. We lived near each 
other in \Yorcester, and could confer with each 
other easily. In that summer I wrote the his- 
tory of Kansas and Nebraska, really before there 
was a white man in that territory who had any 
business there unless he were a soldier. By this 
I mean that the United States' surveyors had 
not gone in there, and any "squatter" could 
have been ejected. But in fact there were no 
" squatters." 

In that summer, however, as has been said, 
our first colonists went out, and at the moment 
when I write I am receiving from Nebraska 
and Kansas the accounts of their half-century 
celebrations, — celebrations in which, I am sorry 
to say, I am not able to share personally. I 
was the junior member of the New England 
Emigrant Aid Company which had the man- 
agement of our Northern emigration, and I am 
president of that Company to-day. We have 
a claim against the United States o;overnment 
for the destruction by its officers of a hotel 
which we owned in Lawrence. The Company 
maintains its existence simply for the purpose of 
transferring that claim to the Lawrence Uni- 
versity, an admirable institution which is main- 



EIGHTY YEARS 



323 



tained. in the city which we founded. The 
name Lawrence was given that city by the set- 
tlers in memory of Mr. Amos Lawrence, the 
first treasurer of our Company. 

When in 1856 I was a.sked to remove from 
Worcester to Boston, and did so, tliis business of 
emigration to the West 
occupied much of my 
time and thought. I 
have devoted the fourth 
chapter of this volume 
in the first edition to 
some account of it, and 
I do not dare enlarge 
that account here. In 
the year 1879 I went to 
Lawrence with my daugh- 
ter to their quarter-cen- 
tennial celebration. It was a most interesting 
occasion. We had still living many of the old 
war horses of that time, and we fought over 
those battles with great satisfaction. The Civil 
War was over. Kansas had the honor that in 
the Civil War a larger proportion of her young 
men served in the United States Army than 
came to it from any other state in the Union. 
Alas and alas, her young men liad been trained 







JmM 




m/1 


^^^^^^^^Hj 



Amos LAWRExrE. 



324 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to war during the years between 1854 and 1860, 
and of course in an emigrant population like 
theirs there were more young men than in the 
average proportion of any other state excepting 
Nebraska. 

I went to Boston, however, with the fixed de- 
termination to be the minister of the South Con- 
gregational Church and nothing else. I did my 
best to hold to that decision. But when Sumter 
was fired upon, on the 12th of April, 1861, all 
this was changed. I had already enlisted as a 
recruit in Salignac's drill corps. It was evident 
to all men and women, to all bo3^s and girls, that 
the preservation of the nation in its integrity 
was the ruling duty of the hour. I gave myself 
to that duty in every way which seemed to me 
feasible. One or two details of it have been 
printed in the earlier editions of this book. The 
ladies of my church were active and patriotic 
from the beginning, and the Sanitary Commis- 
sion had no more efficient auxiliary than their 
society. 

In Chapter V some account has been given of 
the work of the church as a church in such exi- 
gencies. Perhaps I may be permitted to say 
that at that time I formed the habits and as- 
sumed the duties which have since mixed me up 



EIGHTY YEARS 325 

a good deal with public offices in the state of 
Massachusetts, with duties such as I should not 
have been called to perform liad it not been 
for those experiences of the Civil War. Among 
such duties is the charge which I now hold, 
since my appointment, by the unanimous vote 
of the Senate of the United States, to be their 
Chaplain. 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 



CHAPTER IX 
THE IHSTORY OF MAGAZINES 

I AM told that the preceding chapters would 
be more intelligible if I say something about 
what I may call my little share in the develop- 
ment of American literature during the years to 
which I have referred. I will try to do this in 
the briefest possible way, for it is really not 
of any concern, except to my children and tlieu's, 
how or why I found myself among magazine 
writers. But the development of the American 
magazine is curious and important. 

My imcles Edward Everett and Alexander 
Everett were born to be literary men. They 
had distinguished themselves at Harvard Col- 
lege. They had early gone to Europe. And 
they knew how utterly ignorant America at 
laro-e was with regard to the Continent of 
Europe ; they knew also that the American 
reader in general was wrong in his estimate 
of England, as, by the way, he is now. 

To this hour, 1 rate Mr. Alexander Everett's 
two books called " Europe " and " America " as 

329 



330 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

among the important books for a young Ameri- 
can to read. 1 cannot make anybody else think 
so, but I like to say it here. Both of these 
young gentlemen fell in with Mr. Tudor' s 
plans for the North American Review. The 
war with England had brought about a set 
of complications which induced their brother, 
Oliver Everett, to abandon the hardware busi- 
ness in which he was engaged, and he estab- 
lished a new publishing firm in Boston which 
printed and published the North American 
Review. From the index I find that Edward 
Everett contributed an article on the life of 
Heine to the second volume of tlie North 
American. This must have been in 1816. Alex- 
ander Everett, in Europe at the time, contrib- 
uted an article on Peace Societies as early as 
the sixth volume. The North American in its 
earlier volumes was much more of what we call 
a magazine than it has been since. I remember 
a translation from Wilhelm Meister by Mr. Fran- 
cis Galley Gray into English verse. In the year 
I was born, 1822, Oliver Everett published what 
I think was the first reprint of an English maga- 
zine in America. It was printed by my father, 
who was the first person in New England, I 
think, to print by what was called a power press. 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 331 

Of this I am sure, that he was the first person 
in Boston to print by the new tide power which 
had been created by the "Western Avenue" and 
the " Mill Dam." Being about half a century 
in advance of his age in that as in most every- 
thing else, my father had used power presses, as 
they were called, to be run by the waterfall be- 
tween the " full basin " and the '' empty basin " 
of the "Back Bay" in Boston. " Full basin " and 
"empty basin" are now unintelligible words to 
the Boston reader. All of the "empty basin" is 
now occupied by elegant dwellings and by the 
Pul)lic Garden ; most of the " full basin " is 
occupied by what is known as the Fenway Park, 
and by a bad smelling pond. Mrs. Gardner's 
Museum is on the southwest side of the "full 
l)asin." The waterfall between the " full basin " 
and the " empty basin " drove my father's power 
presses. They were the invention of his friend, 
Daniel Treadwell, then a novelty; and the pub- 
lication of a reprint of the New Monthly Maga- 
zine was among their earliest achievements in 
Boston. 

This Monthhj Magazine had obtained a pecul- 
iar distinction in England under the editorial 
charge of the poet, Thomas Campbell, who held 
that charge for ten years. With its fourth 



332 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

volume Mr. Oliver Everett began to reprint it 
in America. 

Oliver Everett assumed the publication of the 
North Atnerican Revieiu, and on the return of 
his brother Edward from Europe, in 1819, he 
became its editor, and continued as such till 
1824. In an article in " Appleton's Cyclope- 
dia," written I think by myself, but " inspired " 
by him, he says " his object in assuming the 
charge of this periodical was to imbue it with 
a thoroughly national spirit, and in pursuance 
of it he contributed a series of articles in which 
this country was defended with great spirit 
against the shallow and flippant attacks of sev- 
eral foreign travellers." The date of Sydney 
Smith's celebrated ej^igram, '' who reads an 
American book, or goes to an American play, 
or looks at an American picture or statue ? " is 
1820. Nine years afterward, when Mr. Alex- 
ander Everett returned from Spain in 1829, he 
assumed the ownership and charge of the North 
American. I forget which of them said to me 
once, that if there had l^een no North American 
Review he and my father and I would have 
been rich men. 

The compensations of magazines were not then 
as large as they are now. For magazine adver- 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 333 

tising, which had been invented in England, had 
not dawned on tlie American mind. The Neio 
England Magazine, founded Ijy tlie Buckingham 
Brothers in 1831, was not successful pecuniaril}^, 
tliough it was very clever. Mr. Edward Everett's 
paper, " A Humorous Account of an invasion of 
Rose Bugs," is as good as anything ever printed 
in an American magazine. It was in the New 
England Magazine that Dr. Holmes, then a 
youngster, wrote the first " Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table." When the Atlantic was started, 
years after, the series as now known begins with 
the words, " As I was saying when you inter- 
rupted me," which refers back twenty-six years. 

Somewhere along in these 3^ears the Knicker- 
hocker began in New York. When I was in col- 
lege we always had it at the Alpha Delta reading 
room by wny of encouraging American litera- 
ture. But what we read were the reprints of 
Blackwood and the Dublin University, and what 
were called " The Four Quarterlies." I remem- 
ber the injunction given by some college presi- 
dent which we used to copy into our note-books 
began with the words, " Read all Reviews." 

In Philadelphia they made the great discovery 
that by subsoiling a very little, and taking into 
their confidence the general reader of America, 



334 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



they could obtain a much larger circulation 
than the dainty literary journals were receiving. 
Grahanis Magazine, Godeys Ladys Book, and 
afterward, the Soutlicrn Literary Messenger, were 
the first magazines whose editors found out that 

while there were 
not many liter- 
ary men and 
women in Amer- 
ica, there were 
many readers. 
Our admirable 
friend Mr. Alden 
laid down the 
rule for me half 
a century after- 
ward, when he 
said in every 
number of a 
magazine there 
must be one love 
story. I do not know whether it is right for me 
to print this axiom for the information of the gen- 
eral reader of to-day. but it is undoubtedly true. 
In Boston a young firm of men named Brad- 
bury and Soden conceived the idea of the Boston 
MiseeUany of Literature and Fashion. Observe 




George Rex Graham, Editor of 
" Graham's Magazine.'" 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 335 

the Fashion. This was iu 1840. This meant 
that in conjunction Avitli hterary work of the 
first rank, they meant to puhlish a fashion plate 
to i)lease what in the language of the day we 
called " the factory gn-ls." When they an- 
nounced that of the first number of the Jlfi.sccl- 
kvuj of Literature and Fa.shion one thousand 
copies were sold in the city of Lowell, they 
made pul)lic the great secret of the modern 
American magazine. You were to have as 
readers not only the Brahmin class, which Mr. 
Arnold calls " tlie margin," but the great rank 
and file of people in America who wanted to be 
instructed and amused. 

The type and make-up of the Boston Miscellany 
of Literature and Fashion were based upon the 
contemporary publications of Edward Moxom in 
London. 

Bradbury and Soden had the wit to come to 
my father to ask him who had better edit this 
magazine. He advised them to ask my brother 
Nathan. He was at that time twenty-one 
years of age, a graduate of Harvard, had spent 
some time at the Law School, and was at that 
moment eno;as;ed in tlie trian emulation of the 
Green Mountains in Berkshire. They had the 
sense to engage this 3'oung law student as edi- 



336 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

tor of the Boston Miscellany. For one year he 
occupied that position, and I will say very 
frankly that no better magazine has been 
printed in America from that day to this. He 
had the editorial help of the Everetts, of Haw- 
thorne, Nathaniel P. Willis, William Story, 
James Lowell, my mother, the Matthews set, 
the Diiyckinck and Jones set in New York ; 
and he published articles by Thomas Parsons, 
Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Kirkland, Nathaniel P. 
Willis, and other writers who wrote as well as 
these I have named, though they were not so 
well known. Among the other pleasant recol- 
lections of it is my impression that the Miscel- 
lany printed for the first time Miss Barrett's 
" Cry of the Children " from her own manuscript. 
I hope I need not say that our whole family 
enlisted in this enterprise. I find that my first 
article in it, which is not a bad one, is the story 
called " The Salamander." It may be worth 
while to print the table of contents of the first 
number. Translation from the Talmud by my 
mother, a sonnet by James Lowell, an article 
on American Sculptors by Edward Everett, a 
poem by William Story, a translation from 
Caroline Pichler l)y my mother (observe this 
is the love story), a poem by James Lowell, this 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 337 

Salamander story by myself, a story by my 
brother, a new song by Barry Cornwall with 
the music by Webb. On the whole this would 
be thought a good selling "table of contents," 
even in our times. 

But the Miscellany, alas, did not pay because, 
as I have said, magazine advertising had not 
been invented. Also the publishers distrusted 
the literary part of the venture, while my 
brother and his friends disliked the fashion 
part, and he resigned at the end of December. 
Afterwards Henry W. Tuckerman had the edit- 
ing of the magazine, but after three or four 
numbers it died. It had lost Lowell, who was 
the best contributor. He with his friend Mr. 
Robert Carter started the Floneer, often al- 
luded to in his life. I think, however, the 
Pioneer printed Init three numbers. That was 
in New York. It was in those days that Willis, 
of whom we thought so nmch, said of Lowell 
that a man of genius who is merely a man 
of genius is a very unfit editor for a periodi- 
cal. Mr. Mead has written a charming paper 
on the Pioneer for the jSFeiv Encjlxind Mafjeizlne. 

As I have said in speaking of the childhood 
of all of us, the editing weekly journals for 
the family began at a very early period. Mine 



338 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

was called the PuMic Informer. I am afraid 
that the unfortunate name was given us by 
some wicked uncle. In my own time the Pub- 
lic Informer gave way to the Fhj, which my 
brother and I printed with our own hands in 
the years 1834and 1835. All that I remember 
of the Fly is its obituary of Lafayette. La- 
fayette died on the lOtli day of May, 1834 ; and 
we stopped the press to announce his death. 
Unfortunately we were at the last gasp in our 
type for the letters u and n, which were used 
as substitutes for each other by proper standing 
on the head of the one or the other. Our obitu- 
ary of Lafayette called him good and noble La- 
fayette, and said that his death was caused by a 
cold. It should have said " influenza." But as 
the reader will observe, that word requires three 
of the n-u combination, so that we substituted 
cold for it, though we were well aware of the 
bathos of the paragraph. Unfortunately, when 
we went to press, the one remaining n dropped 
out of the form, so that Lafayette on our files 
goes down to history as " oble " instead of 
" noble." 

I remember that I wrote for the Advertiser its 
notice of the first number of Graliams Maga- 
zine. Many of our most distinguished authors 



TRfl HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 



339 



afterward blessed Graham for the magazine, 
which coiitiuued for many years. 

Sarfains Maf/azine, with the advantage of his 
own mezzotints, continued with a series of issues 
in Phihidelpliia. The h;il)it then existed wliich 
crops out now 
sometimes of 
offering prizes 
for magjazine 
articles. I am 
apt to think 
that the offer 
of such a pre- 
mium called 
out a good 
deal of ability 
which would 
otherwise have 
lain latent. It 
seems to me 
that was not 
a bad way to 

get that ''stuff," as one of the most eminent 
American publishers used to call it. To me per- 
sonally the custom was of avail ; for in the days 
when I was bringing up a family upon the 
modest salary paid by a newly established 




John Sartain. Editor of " Sartain's 
Ma(;azixe.' 



340 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

parish, the prize of one hundred dollars from 
Sartain or some other adventurous publisher, 
was a very nice addition on the credit side. I 
will say in passing to young authors that I was 
never particular about the subject proposed, if 
the publisher w^anted to pay me a hundred dol- 
lars. Whether -it were a life of Nero, or whether 
it were the abolition of slavery, it was fish to 
my net. Such is the habit generated in a news- 
jDaper ofhce. • 

From 1840 for three years my father had 
published the Monthly Chronicle, a sort of cross 
between the historical magazine and the weekly 
newspa]3er. It is a great pity that the public 
did not see how good it was and continue it to 
this hour. I was, so to speak, the office editor 
of the Chronicle, and I wrote on whatever sub- 
ject I was asked to write about. The subjects 
ranged, with audacity of youth, from a discus- 
sion of the Afghanistan War in the East to the 
invention of the electrotype, or the progress of 
Secondary Education under Louis Philippe. 

The Atlantic Monthly owes its birth to Moses 
Dresser Phillips, who was the partner of Charles 
Sampson. They were two young men who suc- 
ceeded in waking up for the time the moribund 
boolv business of Boston and giving it new life. 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 



311 



Phillips describes himself admirably in a little 
speech which he made at a dinner party in 




Moses Duksser Phillips. 
Reproduced by permission of Houglitou, Mifflin & Co. 

which he inaugurated the Atlantic Monthly. He 
had for his guests Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry 



342 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

W. Longfellow, James Lowell, Lothrop Motley, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elliot Cabot, and Mr. 
Underwood. He characterizes Underwood as 
his " literary man." The speech he made was 
this : — 

" Mr. Cabot is much wiser than I am. Dr. 
Holmes can write funnier verses than I can. 
Mr. Longfellow writes better poetry than I, 
Mr. Motley can write history better than I. Mr. 
Emerson is a philosopher and I am not. Mr. 
Lowell knows more of the old poets than I. 
But none of you knows the American people 
as well as I do." 

This was the exact truth. After a little, 
Lowell became the working editor of the Atlan- 
tic, and in spite of Mr. Willis's forecast fifteen 
years before, proved himself to be one of the 
best editors who has ever administered the 
affairs of a magazine. Lowell and Phillips and 
I were intimate, and it was natural that I 
should write for the Atlantic. My first article 
was the " Dot and Line Alphabet " in the second 
volume. The name " Atlantic " meant some- 
thing: which had to do with both shores of that 
ocean. But the original picture on the cover 
was of John Winthrop, a Massachusetts celebrity. 
As soon as war broke out, however, this was 



THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINES 343 

exchanged for the American flag. There is now 
no picture on the cover. 

When ill 1857 Dr. Hedge and his friends 
took the charge of the Christian Examiner, he 
honored me by asking me to be with Rev. 
Josepli Henry Allen the working editors in the 
renaissance of that somewhat remarkable jour- 
nal. We were youngsters, delighted to serve 
under a philosopher so eminent as he. We 
used to call him the Chief, and do what he told 
us to do. My connection with this journal led 
to my editing Old and New. I still think the 
theory of Old and New was good. As William 
Weeden said of it, it would have succeeded 
had there been anybody connected with it who 
wanted to make money. The theory is that 
of the French Revue des Deux Mondes, that a 
journal which discusses the very gravest points 
in theology or in politics shall at the same time 
and in the same cover have some story or other 
article which a boy or girl of fifteen will like 
to read. In other words, your magazine should 
not be a magazine for experts or leaders only, 
nor should it be a magazine for young men and 
maidens only. It should be both. The Revue 
des Deux Mondes is the only journal in the 
world known to me which really fulfils tliis 



344 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

requisition. And thus it happens, as an accom- 
plished lady once said to me, that the Remie des 
Deux Mondes is in itself a liberal education. 

These details, many of them petty in them- 
selves, must be excused because they bear upon 
the most important literary revolution of the 
last half-century in America. The publishing 
of magazines has become a sejmrate business, — 
industry, shall I say ? And there is not the 
least danger now that any flower will blush 
unseen among the seedlings planted by the 
American public schools. We not only have 
the largest constituency of readers, but we have 
the largest constituency of writers. Some of 
them write well and some of them write ill, 
but those who write well receive their reward 
and those who write ill receive theirs. 



NOW AND THEN 



CHAPTER X 
NOW AND THEN 

I HAVE been trying to select some one sub- 
ject a little limited, by which I might 
present to the " rising generation " the contrast 
between the middle of the late century and this 
year 1904. In one or two of the early chapters 
of these memories I have tried to give an index 
to the change in daily life in a general way, but 
T believe that for the younger set of readers I 
shall do better if I describe one of the contrasts 
more sharply. And we will take a journey from 
Boston to Washington in 1844, as compared with 
a journey between the same points in 1904. As 

" Good Sir Walter, save him God, 
No braver e'er to battle trod," 

said on a celebrated occasion, " 'Tis sixty years 
since." 

By way of introduction, let the young reader 
understand that I was to go from my home in 
Massachusetts to meet an engagement to preach 
in the Unitarian church in the city of Washing- 
ton. I had also engaged with my friend William 

347 



348 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



Francis Clianuiug to go with liim to Schoharie 
Cave. Tliis is an interesting limestone cave in 
the state of New York wliich nobody visits, be- 
cause it is not far enough oft", but wliich is very 
well worth a visit from any of the people of 
sense who may read these lines. Also, I went 




CAi'lioL. W Aftlll-N(.iU-N, lo-i-t. 



to see Trenton Falls, of which much the same 
thing might be said. What I do want is that 
the young reader shall understand the simplicity 
of the travelling arrangements of that day. 

Eh hien, tres Men ! The journey from Massa- 
chusetts to Wnshington is in my journal book 
of faded ink. Let us dip into it. 



NOW AND THEN 349 

(Let me say in passing that for sixty years 
of life, between that time and this, I have 
fomid old John x\dams's remark about diaries 
to be singularly true, lie says that when there 
is nothing of importance to write about you 
have time enough to write in your diary, but 
that when events become interesting you have 
no time to write, and that the diary, therefore, 
tells nothing. This is true, not only of John 
Adams's diaries, but of mine.) 

Septcmhcr 16, 1844. Up at half-past five. 
We breakfasted early, bade good-by to each 
other. We drove over to the Beverly depot 
and we bade them good-by there. We went 
to Boston. At home after the greetings I ran 
my eye over my Egyptian article and sent it 
to Mr. Gannett.' I packed my trunk and my 
box of books, etc. (I needed no heavy bag- 
gage. 1 had boxed up my little store of ser- 
mons, my steady supply of shirts and other 
clothing with one or two of those handbooks 
which one always needs for a winter, and had 
sent them on board the schooner Mnzart for 
Alexandria. Not to speak of the Mozart again, 
I will say that after one montli I received this 
box in Washington.) 

' It never gut piiuted. 



350 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

After dinner I wrote a note to Mr. Dillaway 
which I had not finished when Mr. and Mrs. 
Lothrop appeared on a calL Then a while of 
good-bys and I left for the cars. 

We arrived at Springfield at 8.30 p.m., and 
we went to the American House. (The reader 
will observe that between Beverly and Spring- 
field I had made one change of cars, and that 
at the end of fifteen hours I had come as far as 
Springfield.) 

Tuesdaij, SeiJtertiber 17, 1844. — Another hot 
day. Up at 5.30. We took the western train 
at 7. We were detained an hour at Pittsfield 
by the lateness of the down train. (Observe 
that the western railroad was still a single track, 
and note what follows on this delay. 

Also that in all these incidents it was neces- 
sary to cross from one side of a city to another. 
Governor Lincoln's remark was still regarded 
as truth in these inland towns. He said, " I 
never heard that it did a town any good to 
have a bird fly over it." Accordingly, at that 
time you went from Albany to Buffalo by taking 
one road from Albany to Schenectady, then 
rode across the town and took the road for 
Utica. You then rode across that town and 
took the road for Syracuse. At Rochester you 



NOW AND THEN 351 

crossed the town again and took the road for 
Buffalo. A syndicate, as disbelievers call it, is 
a one made out of many in such affairs.) 

At Albany we hurried at once to the Schenec- 
tady cars, having satisfied ourselves that that 
woidd be our best way, and found they had been 
gone fifteen minutes. Another train started at 
2, however, and we dined at the Railroad House 
and took that. (Schenectady, observe. We have 
taken two days, and done our best, and have 
arrived as far as Schenectady.) At Schenectady 
we hired a wagon and driver to bring us over to 
Howe's Cave, at Schoharie, twenty-two miles. 
In making this little arrangement I made a 
little call at Judge Tomlinson's. 

We have had a very pleasant ride, starting at 
10.15 and arrivhiii; here at 7.30. The latter 
part of the way we have had in sight the north- 
ern end of the Catskill range, under the light of 
a beautiful sunset, which was followed by one 
hour's evening ride through woods and over 
hills, lighted occasionally by fires in the wood- 
land. We are to enter the cave to-morrow at 7 
o'clock. 

Wednesday, Sejytemher 18, 1844. — We were up 
before 6 o'clock and breakfasted at 6.30 o'clock, 
but by dint of several delays in preparation and 



352 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

a walk of half a mile to the cave entrance, we 
did not get started within till 9 o'clock. We 
left the cave at al)out 3.30 wet, dirty, and tired, 
and in the cave dresses walked down to the in- 
different tavern. We had agreed last m<Ait to 
start at 7 rather than at 4, that Howe, the dis- 




Railway 1, 



IN THE Mohawk Valley, 1844. 



coverer and proprietor of the cave, might go with 
us. He had receded, however, and left us to the 
mercies of a guide. We went farther than any- 
body had ever gone before day before yesterday, 
and indeed our guide, who was at the head of our 
column, succeeded in getting into a cavity where 
they had not been. 



NOW AXD THEN 853 

After dinner and packing we rode over hither 
(Sharon), Howe, the keeper of the house, driving 
us. The country is very beautiful, and so is the 
ride l)v sunset and quarter moonlight. We 
arrived here at about 8.20 o'clock, after a three 
hours' ride. Stopped in driving up the hill to 
drink a glass of the mineral water which is 
strongly impregnated with sulphur, having the 
taste and smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. 

(Channing, who was himself an adventurous 
improver on nature, had been at Sharon a few 
years before. He had then organized a little 
party to go out into the forest which was on our 
horizon, and they had climbed a certain tall pine 
in the forest which overtopped the rest. They 
had trimmed out the branches so as to leave a 
well-defined Roman cross on tlie horizon as visi- 
ble from the piazza of the hotel. On this visit 
of ours, to my delight and to his disgust, the 
hotel attendant who showed us the lions of the 
place pointed out this cross as a fine natural 
phenomenon, and in answer to questions on the 
subject, said it had never been touched by axe 
or saw. Such is tradition and such is fame.) 

By a long hot walk to a neighboring farmer's 
we were able to secure a lumber wagon and two 
horses to take us over to Cherry Valley, eight 



354 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

miles, in time for the Cooperstown stage. We 
had set our hearts on going to Cooperstown. We 
ate our dinner in some dread lest we were too 
late ; our teamster had pronomiced that it would 
require an hour and a half to go over. His 
chariot wheels tarried too long as he brought his 
wagon up to the house, l)ut finally, just before 1, 
we got under way in a red lumber wagon 
without springs. It proved for all that, how- 
ever, a very comfortable vehicle. We had 
wagon chairs in it carefully cushioned and skin- 
covered. We drove fast, and at 2.10 we were at 
Cherry Valley. The stage did not appear till 
fifteen minutes afterwards, and we had time to 
hear a crude Ijar-room political conversation, to 
take a walk in the village, to try to buy " The 
Pioneers," and to plan out to-morrow's route be- 
fore starting. From Cherry Valley to Coopers- 
town is twelve or fourteen miles. The stage 
drove quickly, and a very pleasant ride we had. 
The day was clear, but we did not feel the heat 
unpleasantly, and had the whole stage most of 
the way to ourselves. In tliis part of the state 
the woodlands, consisting almost entirely of de- 
ciduous trees, are like the Western woods, oj^en, 
quite destitute of undergrowth, so that they 
have the aspect of the artificial growth of a 



NOW AND THEN 355 

gentleman's park of a country house or such Hke, 
marked, however, at the same thne, with the 
greatest variety of species and perfection of in- 
dividual trees. Just at this time they were be- 
ginning to change their colors, so that tlie shades 
of different trees, and different shapes, were more 
beautiful than ever in summer, — not the gor- 
geousness of later autumn, but a beauty of light 
and shade as the sunlight came upon them such 
as I thought I had never seen before. 

Into Cooperstown we rode by the same down- 
hill road as that w^hicli introduces the Pioneers 
to the reader. Oar plan was to sleep there if 
we could do no better. But we found a boat- 
man willing to send us up Lake Otsego to 
Bailey's Tavern. And despite the wonder of 
the innkeeper, who told us the plan was unheard 
of, and despite the lightness of the wind, we 
sent our trunks to the boat. We could take an 
afternoon's fishing, if nothing else. A beautiful 
sail we had on beautiful Otsego Lake. Take it 
all in all, I tliink Cooperstown the prettiest 
town I know of in position. AVe had a chance 
to walk throuLirh it before startino; in our in- 
effectual effort to buy "The Pioneers." 

Frklcuj, September 20, 1844. — Very hot, clear. 
From William Bailey's Tavern, in Middlefield, 



356 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

on Otsego Lake, to Trenton Falls. At this little, 
out-of-the-way place we found very good quarters 
and slept enthusiastically and soundly. On de- 
liberation and consultation Channing determined 
that he would leave me at Fort Plains and go 
homeward while I should go west to Utica. 

The stage for Fort Plains appeared at about 
8.15. We could not get outside seats, but 
within we had to ourselves the whole of the 
middle seat, with l)ut five other passengers be- 
fore and behind us; two of them were children. 
During most of the ride we passed over the high 
dividing ridge between Otsego and the Mohawk 
(at one point of which an intelligent travelling 
companion said we were twelve hundred feet 
above the Mohawk's level). There had been 
frost enough to begin the changes on the forest 
foliage. Like those we saw yesterday, the woods 
were beautifully varied. The first tinting, when 
each begins to vary from the others in coloring, 
with but few strong contrasts, is certainly one of 
the most beautiful of the autumn phases. I do 
not think I have ever seen it so constantly in 
such exquisite perfection as to-day and yesterday. 

From the beautiful to the ridiculous, as we 
rode into the tow^n of Fort Plains we found that 
a militia training was in progress. The main 



NOW AND THEN 357 

street of the town was crowded with booths, 
and horses and carriages and people. Promi- 
nent among these were the horse-cart pedlers, 
who made up the principal noise of the fair, for 
fair it was, by their auction sales. Three of them, 
as near together as their carts could stand, con- 
stantly otfered select lots of their wares for such 
bids as they could get. " Now, gentlemen, here's 
a bottle of excellent writing ink, to which I will 
add (diving into his cart) a pair of wooden 
combs, and a no-mistake, straightforward steel 
pen, and a pure silver thimble, worth twenty- 
five cents — and — a bottle of essence of pepper- 
mint — and — liow much shall I have for the 
lot?" I actually saw the progress of the forma- 
tion and sale of this lot which was sold for nine- 
pence to a decent-looking man who was assured 
by the pedler that he would not want to buy 
anything else for nine years. 

All this we liad some ten minutes to enjoy as 
the stage stopped for the mail. We caught a 
distant glimpse of the regiment which in the 
distance looked military enough. A single com- 
pany which formed close by us in the street 
looked the perfect realization of the caricature 
prints of Johnston and the othei-s in ridicule of 
the militia. And yet this did not seem to be 



358 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

meant for burlesque, )3ut to be the result of utter 
ignorance and carelessness. The men were all 
dressed in something which bore marks of mili- 
tary appearance, but such equipments had evi- 
dently been selected at random. I noticed one 
man, who, having failed to stick a white plume 
in his hat, carried it buttoned up in his coat at 
tlie breast. 

From the village we rode down to the depot. 
In the three-quarters of an hour before the cars 
arrived Channing and I bathed in the Mohawk. 
Here I bade him good-by. 

My train left Fort Plains at 11.45. All the 
way to Utica the scenery is pleasingly beautiful. 
At Utica at 2.15. Dined there. 

I started in a buggy for this place. The even- 
ing was beautiful, but the afternoon bitterly hot. 
I had also to thaw out a very crusty driver. 

(At that time Trenton Falls, midway between 
Albany and Niagara, were visited by almost 
every adventurous traveller who had undertaken 
the Niagara journey. I am afraid that the dis- 
tance from the Vanderbilt line of railway pre- 
vents travellers from o-oing; there now. All I 
can say is, so much the worse for the traveller. 
I think that the hotel is well kept up, and in 
the sixty years of life which I have passed 



NOW AND THEN 359 

since, I have found no place more attractive 
or beautiful.) 

I have walked down to the gorge to-night to 
see it by moonlight. I must have been tired 
when I wrote those last lines, to say nothing 
more of mj' lirst view, only of the water and 
gorge though it were. I turn to this page again 
at Owego, four or live days after. Those high, 
bold cliffs just I'lnming back form a perpen- 
dicular with the rich, high forest foliage that 
covered them where one was lighted by the 
moon and the other in l)lack shadow. As I 
saw them Sunday night, or when the moon 
touched parts of both, as it did on Friday night, 
it was all grand, — very grand. Deep down as 
I was in the cleft, it reminded me of Schoharie. 

Saturday Mornbuj, September 21. — As soon 
as breakfast was done I went down to the 
stream. x\nd till 1 o'clock I was passing through 
the chasm, up and down. And I hated to 
go away, even after five hours, more than I 
should have hated to have gone without seeing 
them. I walked up slowly, stopped half an 
hour at the first, and half an hour more at the 
second rapids. If there had been nothing more 
than the strano-e and beautiful foliage of the 
valley and the boldness of the cliffs, with that 



360 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



deep black stream lashing itself up in a series 
of suck rapids as those, I should have been 
quite satisfied. I had always heard people speak 
of Trenton Falls as a series of descents ; and I 
supposed that there were perhaps no positive 
cascades. So that when 1 walked a few steps 




Trextox Falls. 
From an old print. 

farther up than the higher of these two rapids, 
and saw the lowest fall, it took me all by sur- 
prise, and I sat and stood and wondered and 
admired for an hour more. I watched the 
texture of the foam spreading out as it descends, 
and then took in the whole and listened, and 
then rainbow o;azed till I could have cried, and 



NOW AND THEN 361 

then I walked up higher. And there was the 
great fall, the first thne. After half an hour 
perhaps of the coup (Toeil of its lower foam 
cascade and the perpendicular cataract, I ran up 
to this and sat in a shady nook, close by its 
wildest rush of foam, to watch that. And there 
I could have stayed all day. 

The walk afterwards is beautiful, — very. A 
foaming caldron. The first rapid above the 
" mill-dam " falls is very grand, and the vista 
down the stream, with its perspective of foliage 
on the banks, is beautiful. Although none of 
these trees here have their full autumn costume, 
all of them are slightly gilded, so that the form 
of each is perfectly distinct in the very thick 
mass of forest. 

Tlie highest point of the stream that one can 
well walk to al)ove the Kock Heart is very curi- 
ous, — the channel is so very deep and narrow. 
Black as Erebus, it rushes by, so deep that you 
cannot find 1)ottom, however deeply you throw 
down a stick. It rises, or seems to rise, without 
touchino;. 

After dinner I rushed down to the stream 
again as quickly as might be. A thunder shower 
was coming up, and I was afraid that I should 
lose most of the afternoon on account of the rain. 



362 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

Sure enough, I had hardly reached the lower fall 
when the rain began. I had my umbrella, but it 
at once appeared that the clitf overhangs there 
so much that there was an immense reach shel- 
tered, and there I sat and enjoyed. There were 
some women who wished to go farther, and to 
them I willingly gave up my umbrella, and sat 
through the whole shower, looking down upon 
that wonderful fall. The thunder began soon 
after I was there. Caroline King had told me 
in speaking of Niagara that thunder was readily 
distinguishable from the sound of a cataract, but 
I could not understand it till I heard them both 
here. The water sound itself was grand and full 
toned, growing, as I thought, louder and louder, 
and deeper and deeper, with every moment of 
rain — and then the heavy blow of thunder 
would ring down side by side with the other, 
without for a moment eclipsing it, at first per- 
fectly distinct from it, but as it echoed up and 
down the gorge finally lost in the echoes of the 
fall and those of the other falls and rapids above 
and below. For an hour there were these sub- 
lime tones ringing round me, in accompaniment 
to the fall of the surge below me. And in the 
rain the opposite shores, half-veiled, had a pecul- 
iar beauty, quite different from that of the morn- 



NOW AND THEN 363 

iiig or of last evening, when they were in such 
different lights. 

The rain stopped a little while, and when it 
came on again I was halfway up the upper leap 
of the largest fall, and there I again ensconced 
myself in shelter quite close to the falling water. 
The widest part of this leap falls in a smooth, 
thin curtain into the Ijasin below. When I first 
saw it there was so little water that in many 
places this was broken into several streams. To 
the right, as you look down, a much greater 
mass of water rushes over in a somewhat differ- 
ent direction, and so broken by obstacles as to 
make a thick mass of foani. A single rock sepa- 
rates this at the top from the deepest stream of 
all, which leaps oft', however, so as to strike it 
halfway down. By this whirling pillar of water 
I seated myself and enjoyed. 

I was at the house all the evening. The next 
morning I went to Trenton. (I had sent over 
to my friend, Mr. Buckingham at Trenton Vil- 
lage, to say that I would preach for him on Sun- 
day. It proved that he was ill and that the 
church was to be closed. But they rang the bell, 
and when I arrived at Trenton the people from 
tlie countrv round were Iie^i-innino: to come in. 
It was the first and last occasion when I have 



364 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

known the ringing of a Sunday bell to serve the 
purpose for which it was intended. On Monday 
I resumed the journey which these lines are 
describing.) 

Monday, Se2:)tember 23, 1844. — Cool and fine. 
Trenton Falls. Ithaca. I was knocked up, as I 
had appointed, before 4, got up and dressed, and 
locked up and was under way, driven by the 
hostler of Moore's stable, in a good double wagon, 
at 4.15. It was very cold. We kept w^arm by 
occasionally running up a hill on foot. The 
sunrise was very fine, just as we were on the 
high hill between Trenton and Utica. Break- 
fast at Utica, sent off l^y Pomeroy to Boston my 
box of minerals, bought a map of the state to 
replace that which I left at Springfield, and 
started for Auburn on my way to Cayuga. 
Could not buy tickets farther than Auburn. 
Syracuse is a large, bustling town, where, as 
Pepys would say, I bought a watch key. (I 
think there is some astrological connection be- 
tween me and Syracuse and watch keys. I 
should say that sooner or later I have bought 
a half-dozen there under different exigencies.) 

At Auburn, where we arrived at 12.15, 1 found 
to my horror that the Cayuga Lake boat left the 
northern end of the lake at 1, and that we stopped 



NOW AND THEN 3Go 

to dine till 2. Cayuga Bridge eleven miles off ! 
I had nothing; to do but bear it. Put niv bacjj- 
gage (after dinner) on board for Cayuga Bridge, 
to take my chance of a boat there, but resolved 
to go on to Seneca Lake at Geneva for to-morrow's 
boat if it proved necessary. Fortunately, how- 
ever, at Cayuga Bridge I found the D. W. 
Clinton, a towboat, just going up. The only 
other boat had gone an hour and a half before. 
Arrived at Ithaca, forty miles, at 9 o'clock p.m., 
walked up to the Clinton Hotel, leaving my 
trunk to be sent up in the morning. (I beg the 
remaining readers to note that the cars change 
once between Utica and Cayuga Lake. Such 
was the habit of that time. I have remem- 
bered ever since the shock I inflicted on the 
onl}^ passenger of this freight boat. She was a 
dear old lady, not disinclined to talk. As 1 
passed a golden field, where wheat had been 
reaped not long before, I said to her that this 
was the first field of wheat which I had ever 
seen. The good lady's surprise, her sad indig- 
nation that a young man should tell so unnec- 
essary a lie, has been a warning to me ever since. 
The statement was perfectly true, but seemed to 
her as utterly false as words could be.) 

Tuesday, September 24, 1844. — From Ithaca 



366 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

to Owego. All day, until 1.44, riding. To Owego 
on the railroad from Ithaca. The cars were 
announced to start at 6. I was called at twenty 
minutes before six, dressed in all haste, and found 
my trunk had not come up from the steamboat 
landing. After sundry chafferings I took a 
buggy, drove down and got it myself. Break- 
fasted, and then took the open omnibus for the 
R. depot on the hilltop. A long, very steep, 
inclined plane takes freight from the lake 
up to the railroad, but passengers ride up this 
steep hill. There began a series of delays which 
lasted through the trip. There were some twenty 
passengers. We were put into a wretchedly 
decayed, three-parted car, and waited, say from 
7 o'clock to 8.20, then with a large load of 
freight, mostly plaster, we started. We travelled 
fifteen miles in an hour and three-quarters, when 
it was announced that at the halfway house we 
must wait an hour while a key of the piston was 
mended. We waited three, till 1.5, and started 
again. Constantly stopped for want of power, 
finally ran a plaster car off the track, and left it 
there, much to my joy, and at last arrived here, 
twenty-nine miles, at 1.44. The last quarter of 
a mile I walked. The car was drawn u|) by a 
horse and got here about 4 o'clock. (It had 



NOAV AND THEN 3G7 

taken us the better part of the day to do thirty 
miles. I remember I went to Glenmary, the 
pretty residence of Nathaniel Parker Willis ; at 
that time he was writing from there what were 
known as the Glenmary Letters.) 

Wednesday, Sejjtemher 25, 1844. — Cool, pleas- 
ant, sky overcast, with a few drops of rain. 
Owego — Brownstown, Penn. 

We started at 8.30 from Owego in the " stage," 
a large, two-seated wagon with a pair of horses. 
The passengers were, beside me, on the back seat 
a woman and child, in front a sailor and an 
Englishman, Mr. McRae of New Yoi"k. We 
forded the Susquehanna aljout three miles below 
Owego, and after we came to Nichols crossed the 
hills to Rome, Pennsylvania, say twenty-two 
miles. At Rome there was a mass Polk meeting^ 
of perhaps one hundred and fift}^ persons. 

(I will not follow the detail of the journal 
farther. The detail is amusing to me. ))ut I 
must not make this reader follow my advance 
through Tiiursday and Friday b}^ different 
" stages " and wagons, to the Pennsylvania Canal 
system, on one of the upper branches of the 
Susquehanna. There was no railroad, and the 
customs of the countrv were such that no one 
liked to take me more than ten miles. 1 would 



368 



MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 



advance ten miles with my luggage, and at the 
livery stable of Towanda or Tunkhannock, or 
whatever place might be, I hired another driver 
for another half an hour. As I approached 
Brownstown, in Pennsylvania, which I am sorry 
to say I do not iind on my " Scribner's Atlas," 




Susquehanna Canal and Boats, 18-14. 



at half-past one in the morning, I told my driver 
that I would not go farther till I knew where 
we were. So we waked up a sleeper in the 
first house we came to, and with some hesitancy 
I asked him how far we were from Brownstown. 
" Stranger," he cried, to my relief, " you are in 
the very centre of the metropolis of Browns- 



NOW AND THEN 3G9 

town." And we were. There was a country 
inn nearly opposite. 

By such resources, through Thursday and 
Friday of that w^eek, we reached on Friday the 
Canal system; I think, at Northumberland. I re- 
member that we arrived at the stopping-place of 
the canal-boat in the morning, five minutes late, 
and that my skilful driver put the wagon on the 
tow-path, and we followed and overtook the 
boat. I leaped on board, m}^ trunk was taken 
on board, and that beautiful voyage down the 
Susquehanna began. Unfortunately for me, a 
little above Harrisburg, on that journey, my 
stovepipe hat was knocked off by a low bridge, 
and only recovered by the boatman with his 
boat hook. It was full of w^ater, alas, and for 
two or three days it was drying itself in front of 
such fires as offered. I safely, though slowly, 
travelled on tow^ard Washington, and on the 
afternoon of Saturday was delivered at York, 
Pennsylvania. From that point there was, as 
there is, a railway to Baltimore. There was a 
train to take me thither, and I arrived at Balti- 
more at Barnum's Hotel in time for supper. 

To the 3'oung traveller I need not say that by 
this time I was without money, but to those that 
believe that fortune favors tlie brave, I need not 



370 MEMORIES OF A HUNDRED YEARS 

say that my dear classmate and friend, Nathaniel 
Holmes Morison, afterwards the distinguished 
Provost of the Peabody Library, lived in town, 
and that I walked up and called on him, and 
borrowed five dollars of him. The incident is 
not worth mentioning, but that I think that this 
was the first time I had ever seen the gold coin of 
my own country. I took the 4 o'clock morning 
train from Baltimore to Washington ; and to the 
great relief of my friend Abbott, reported with 
the sermon at his hospitable home, which was at 
the corner of I Street and Seventeenth Street, 
where Mr. Pollock afterwards built a palace 
which now stands. 

As I count up the number of carriages between 
Beverly and Washington, this involves twenty- 
eight changes of carriages for a journey achieved 
in thirteen days. 

Now note the contrast between 1844 and 
1904. 

From Boston to Washington in 1004. — Carriage 
to station at 12 m. Train to New York, arriving 
at 6 P.M. Manhattan Hotel. Saturday morning, 
carriage to Royal Blue at Liberty Street, and by 
train to Washington, 3.50 p.m. Automobile from 
Baltimore station to Eighteenth Street. Time, 
twenty-seven hours.) 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbot, George J. — 

Habits of Daniel Webster, II, 34. 

Intimacy witb, II, 141. 
Adams, C. F., memoirs of J. Q. 

Adams, II, i;{8-i;5!). 
Adams, Henry, history of years 
between 1801 and 1817, I, 
182-184. 
Adams, John — 

"Filibuster," I, (U. 

Hamilton appointed as com- 
mander of army under 
Washington, I, iyi. 

Massachusetts constitution, im- 
jiortance of education, II, 208. 

Philadelphia yellow fever anec- 
dote, I, 22fi-227. 

Remark as to diaries, II, 1549. 
Adams, John Quincy — 

Congregational Council Modera- 
tor, II, i:58. 

Intimacy with Alex. Everett, I, 
117, 259, '2m. 

Journal, Monroe's administra- 
tion, I, 2:34-2;!(). 

Massachusetts vote, 1828, I, 272- 
273. 

Memoirs, II, 138-139. 

Monroe Doctrine, I, 246-249. 

Plymouth Colony District, Rep- 
resentative in Congress, II, 
1.3(). 

Popularity, II, 137. 

Russia, mission to, I, 117, 259. 

Slavery, attitude, II, 12(5-127. 
"^•Eneid," a hasty course in the, 

11,310. 
.Vfrica — 

Colonization Society, formation, 
1817, II, 123-124. 



Africa — Continued. 
Tripoli tan war conquest of Derne, 

I, 58-t;2. 

Alabama, admission to Union, I, 
238. 

Alamo massacre, Texas indepen- 
dence, II, 148. 

Alleghanies, canal scheme, I, 305. 

Allen, Rev. J. H., on editorial 
board of Christian Exam- 
iner, II, 343. 

Alpha Delta Phi, literary society, 

II, 259. 

America, discovery, results of, 
Abbe Genty prize essay, 1792, 

I, 16,20; 11,284-288. 
"America," Alexander Everett's, 

II, 329-330. 

Amory, Thomas C, editing of 
Heath-Washington letters, 

I, 161. 

Audover Theological Seminary, 
annual commencement, 1861, 

II, 188. 

Appomattox Valley, surrender of 

Lee, II, 214-215. 
Arabs, American colony at Cairo, 

I, 62-63. 
Atlantic Monthly — 
Article in, anecdote, II, 215- 

217. 
"Autocrat of the Breakfast 

Table" in, II, 333. 
Birth of the, II, 3.33. 
"Dot and Line Alphabet " article 
in, II, ;U2. 
Augusta, chaise drive of Nathan 

Hale to Bangor, I, 114, 117. 
Austin, J. T., lecture on siege of 
Boston, I, 146. 



373 



374 



INDEX 



Austria, Motley as miuister to 

Vienna, II, 78-79. 
Authors — 
Sparks's advice, II, 54. 
" Toniug down ' ' writings, II, 8-9. 
Warning to young writers, 11,251. 
[See also names, Holmes, etc.] 
" Autocrat of tlie Brealifast 
Table" — 
Advent of, II, 250, 333. 
Series in Netc England Maga- 
zine, II, 249, 333. 
Ayres, Miss, scliool, I, 2G9. 

Baker, Miss L., play at Faneuil 

Hall, 177(5, I, 155. 
Baltimore conventions — 
Harrison election, 1840, accident 

to delegate, I, 231-232. 
National conventions for election 
of President, I, 232, 278. 
Bancroft, George — 
Characteristics and beliefs, II, 

59-60. 
Collector of the Customs, II, 5(5. 
History, work on, II, 55-56, 58, 

61, 62. 
Intimacy with, 11, 56, 61. 
Manuscripts, II, 61. 
Newport home, roses, II, 65. 
Polk, J. K., election as President 
and intimacy with, II, 6;3-()4. 
Step-sons, education of, II, 57. 
Bangor, chaise drive of Nathan 
Hale from Angusta, 1, 114, 117. 
Barlow, Joel, publication of poem 

in London, II, 228. 
Basins, "full" and "empty," in 

Back Bay, II, 331. 
Battles — 
Bunker Hill, see that title. 
Civil War, see that title. 
Sau Jacinto, Texas independence, 
II, 148. 
Bayley, General, Civil War, II, 175. 
Beacon Hill, Boston, levelling, etc., 

I, 132-133. 
Bean, Ellis — journey of Philip 
Nolan in Texas, I, 78-79. 



Beecher, Henry Ward, "Sharp's 

Rifle Beecher," II, 165. 
Bennington victory and trophies, 
Revolutionary War, I, 150- 
151. 
Bill of Rights of Massachusetts, 
freedom passage, II, 108-110. 
Bismarck, acquaintance with Mot- 
ley, II, 79. 
Blackburn, Ephraim, of Nolan ex- 
pedition, I, 81, 83. 
Bliss, W. D. and A., step-sons of 

George Bancroft, II, 57. 
"Blockade of Boston," play inci- 
dent, 1776, I, 155. 
Books of Dr. Hale's boyhood, II, 

307-309. 
Boott, K., garden to Boston house, 

I, 125. 
Boston — 
Area, 1808, I, 132. 
Beacon Hill, levelling, etc., I, 

132-133. 
"Blockade of Boston," play in- 
cident, I, 155. 
Bunker Hill, battle of, see that 

title. 
Coasting scene. Revolutionary 

anecdote, I, 158. 
Common, British redoubts and 
grass circles of Revolution- 
ary times, I, 1,')2-15.3. 
Comparison in life of 1808 and 

to-day, I, 12.3-133. 
Cornhill of to-day and of 1808, I, 

123. 
Daily Advertiser, Nathan Hale 
as editor, I, 114, 117, 118, 
119, 129, 260, 261; II, 135, 
1(54. 
Derne Street and the conquest of 

Derne, I, (34. 
Eighteenth century, beginning 
of, celebration, II, 25)0-296. 
Emerson lectures, 183-3, II, 230. 
Faneuil Hall, see that title. 
Fuel and molasses, I, 131. 
Gardens to private houses, 1808, 
I, 123-125 ; II, 304. 



INDEX 



375 



Boston — Continued. 

Hale's (Nathan) career, I, 111- 
IIS. 

HaiK'Ock Cusbiiian School, Eng- 
lish taught to foreign pupils, 

I, 107. 

Historical study and research, 

causes of, II, 45—4(5. 
Journey from, to Washington, in 

1844, II, 347-370. 
Latin School, .see that title. 
Libraries, historical collections, 

II, 4.5-4G. 

Magazines originating in, 11,330, 
3;5l2-3;«, 335-338, ;Ul-343. 

Middlesex Canal, charter, con- 
struction, etc., 1,291). 

Model of town made by French- 
man, I, 123. 

Population, 1808, I, 1.32. 

Powder-house, visit of General 
Washington, I, 147. 

Railroad, 1833, I, ir>0; II, 309. 

Revolutionary men, 1808, I, 134. 

Rum manufacture, I, 131-132; 
II, 115, 

Schoolday reminiscences, I, 265- 
270 ; II, 30V1-310. 

Siege, see Boston, Siege of. 

Social changes, 1808 and to-day, 
I, 125-133. 

Smaller Boston in 1808, I, 123- 
133. 

Stables, Boston, of 1808, I, 127- 
12'.t. 

State House, laying corner-stone 
of annex, I, 1.33. 

Tea Party, see Boston Tea Party. 

Twentieth century, beginning of, 
celebration, II, 2!iO-2<K>. 

Twentieth Century Club, II, 281. 

Vehicles of 1808, I, KiO. 

Washington's entry into, I, 1(12, 
1(^,173. 

Webster's address on Missouri 
Compromise, I, 244, 245; II, 
120-121. 

Webster's career, I, 118; II, 
26. 



Boston, Siege of — 
Austin's (J. T.) lecture, I, 146. 
History of, traditional anecdotes, 

I, 135-151). 
Boston Tea Party 

Melvill, Major, I, 138, 140, 142. 
Sprague, Charles, father of, I, 

140. 
Story of, T, 139-141. 
Boston and Worcester railroad — 
Construction, I, 130, .292; II, .'509. 
Fessenden, J. :M., report on T 

rails and flat rails, I, 310. 

Steam power, reports, I, 309-310. 

Bowdoin, Governor J., garden to 

Beacon St. house, Boston, I, 

124. 

Boyhood, recollections of Dr. 

Hale's, 1, 2G4-273 ; II, ;»2-310. 

Bradbury and Soden, publishers, 

II," 3.34-336. 
Braddock's defeat, American Rev- 
olution, I, 162, 166. 
Bread, white, story of Josiah 

Quincy, I, 296. 
Broke, Captain P. B. V., surren- 
der of Chesapeake to Shan- 
non, 1813, I, 205-214. 
Brooks's assault on Sumner, II, 

16;5-1(>4. 
Brown, Dr. G. N., printing-press 
established in Lawrence, II, 
159, 164. 
Brown, ^Frs. Nancy, description of 

Bunker Hill battle, I, 144. 
Browning, Mrs. — 
" Cry of the Children " by, first 

publication, 11, 336. 
" Toning down "of " Lady Ger- 
aldine's Courtship " passage, 

II, 9. 

Brownstown, Pa., visit to, in 1S44, 

II, ;i68-:}(i9. 
Bryant, W. C, introduction to, II, 

74. 
Bryant and Gay's History, writing 

for, II, 62. 
Bryce, James, state and national 

government in U.S., I, 217. 



376 



INDEX 



Buckingham Brothers, New Eng- 
land Magazine founded by, 
II, 333. 
Builders — the four founders, I, 16- 

18. 
Bull Run, impressions as to army 
after defeat at, II, 178-182, 
185 {note). 
Bunker Hill, battle of — 
Description — wounded British 

soldiers, I, 144-145. 
Monument, coi-ner-stone laid by 
Lafayette, I, 137. 
Burgoyne's surrender, American 

Revolution, I, 143-144. 
Burke, Edmund, eloquence of, Ed- 
ward Everett's opinion, II, 7. 
Burr, Aaron — 
Davis's life of, I, 97. 
Jackson, A., suggested as candi- 
date for President, 1, 275-276. 
Jefferson, acquaintance with, I, 

88, 95-97. 
Journey down Ohio and Missis- 
sippi rivers, I, 98-99. 
Mystery of career, I, 91. 
New York politics, 1795-1800, I, 

88, 91. 
Plot, see Burr conspiracy. 
Presidential candidate with Jef- 
ferson, I, 92, 95. 
Slavery attitude, 11, 100. 
Vice-President, I, 96, 97, 98. 
Virginia junto, opinion, I, 224. 
[See also Burr conspiracy.] 
Burr conspiracy — 
Agencies, I, 87. 
Jefferson's attitude, I, 87. 
Plan conceived during journey 

to New Orleans, I, 98-99. 
Research, unexplored material, 

1,86. 
Treason Trial at Richmond, I, 

86. 

Wilkinson, treason of, I, 55, 57. 

Butler, Captain, Shannon and 

Chesapeake incident, I, 207. 

Butler, General, Civil War, II, 200- 

207, 211, 212, 213. 



Cabot, Edward, organization of 
drill club. Civil War, II, 173. 
Cabot, Elliot, guest of M. D. Phil- 
lips at dinner party, II, 341- 
342. 
Cffisar, Nolan's expedition in 

Texas, I, 78, 79, 81. 
Cairo, American colony, I, 62-63. 
Calhoun, J. C, Missouri question, 

" States Rights," I, 242. 
Calvinism, doom of, II, 270, 271, 272. 
Cambridge, see Harvard. 
Campbell, James, sailor on Consti- 
tution, lines written by, I, 
204. 
Campbell, Thomas, editor of Eng- 
lish Neiv Monthly Maga- 
zine, II, 331. 
Canal-boat travelling, in 1844, II, 

365, 369. 
Canals — 
Champlain, cost and success of, 

I, 298. 
Chesapeake and Ohio, I, 308. 
Earliest American works, I, 299. 
Enthusiasm and early enter- 
prises, I, 30.3-.305. 
Erie Canal construction, I, 295- 

298. 
Fulton and Gallatin on value of 
canal system, 1807, 1, 305-308. 
Importance of canal system of 

transportation, I, .30,5-.308. 
Middlesex Canal construction, 

charter, etc., I, 299. 
Ohio enterprises, I, ;304. 
Pennsylvania, AUeghanyscheme, 

I, 305, 311-313. 

Rees's Cyclopsedia history, I, 

296-297. 
Stowe, Mrs., sketch, I, 31.3-.316. 
Susquehanna, trip on, in 1844, 

II, 369. 

Canning, George, Monroe Doctrine, 
1823, I, 246. 

Cape Cod, boyhood trip to, II, 304. 

Capital, Federal, position in South- 
ern and Northern territory, 
1,94. 



INDEX 



377 



Carlyle, first money for books re- 
ceived from Emerson, II, 
2m. 

Carter, Robert, joint founder with 
Lowell of the Pioneer, II, 
3:57. 

Cereal foods of Massachusetts in 
boyhood of Josiah Quincy, 

I, 2iK5. 

Century, see Eighteenth and Twen- 
tieth. 

Champlain Canal, cost and success 
of, I, 2;t8. 

"Chancellor Livingston," Robert 
R Livingston known as, I, 
24, 26. 

Channing, W. F. — 
Journey to Schoharie Cave, II, 

;U7-;U8. 
Roman cross in pine tree at 
Sharon, N.Y., anecdote, II, 

Channing, Rev. W. H., Washing- 
ton party, li>(i3, II, 19»- 
19i». 

Chaplaincy of United States Sen- 
ate, Dr. Hale's election to, 

II, 325. 

Chelmsford water dam, building, 
salmon anecdote, I, 301- 
.•502. 

Chemical match, introduction of, 
II, ii6. 

Chesapeake, surrender to Shan- 
non, 1813, I, 205-214. 

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, ser- 
vice, etc., I. ;50S. 

Child, Mrs., antislavery book, II, 
118. 

Childhood reminiscences, I, 204- 
273; II, 302-310. 

China, early trade with, II, 94. 

Chi'iMian Examiner, Dr. Hale's 
connection with tlie, II, ;i43. 

Church, E., account of experiment 
with Fulton's steamboat, I, 
22. 

Cincinnati, expedition for capture 
of Orleans, I, 05-07. 



Civil War — 

Ai)pomattox Valley, surrender 
of Lee, II, 214-215. 

Battle — " My first and last bat- 
tle," II, iitlt-210. 

Bull Run, impressions as to army 
after defeat, II, 178-182, 185 
{note). 

Butler, General, II, 200-207, 211, 
212, 21.3. 

Campaign, story of, II, 171-219. 

("annouade, story of, II, 207-211. 

Church assistance, II, 178, 185- 
187, 200, 324. 

Despatch bearer. Dr. E. E. Hale, 
11, 2O.3-20<). 

Kansas soldiers, proportion of, 
II, l.-)(i, 323. 

Leaders of secession policy, vio- 
lation of Missouri Compro- 
mise, II, 1:50. 

Massachusetts regiments, march 
to State House, 1865, anec- 
dote, II, 178. 

Personal reminiscences, II, 171- 
219. 

Salignac's drill club, II, 173-176, 
324. 

Shiloh, battle of, II, 18.5. 

Sumter attack, II, 172-176, 324. 

Trent affair, II, liX), 192. 

War sermons, II, 1S7. 

Writings of Dr. E. E. Hale dur- 
ing war, II, 219. 
Clapp, Eben, Revolutionary sol- 
dier, I, 142-143. 
Clay, Henry — 

Defeat as presidential candidate, 
II, W, 129, 150. 

Missouri Compromise, I, 243; II, 
125. 

Northwestern Territory, treaty 
of 1814, I, 316. 

Slavery debate, II, 123. 
Clermont, steamboat, voyage, 1807, 

I, 19, 29, 30. 
Clifford, J. H., storj' of Edward 
Everett's speech at Williams 
College, 1837, II, 14. 



378 



INDEX 



Clinton, De Witt, Erie Canal con- 
struction, I, 295-298. 
Coasting scene, Boston, Revolu- 
tionary anecdote, I, 158. 
Coleridge, lecture on Love, I, 261- 

264. 
Colonization Societj'-, formation, 

1817, II, 123-124. 
Colored people — 
Colonization Society, formation, 

1817, II, 123-124. 
Slavery, see that title. 
Columbia River, discovery, I, 18. 
Commerce — 
Crisis of 1837, I, 278, 285, 287. 
Maritime commerce, see that 

title. 
Monroe's opinion, 1811, I, 192, 

193. 
Progress, I, 15, 18, 20; II, 318. 
War of 1812, see that title. 
Compromise, see Missouri compro- 
mise. 
Concord life of Emerson, II, 236, 

239. 
Congregational Council, J. Q. 
Adams as Moderator, II, 
138. 
Conkling, R., opinion as to finest 
passage in modern oratory, 
II, 4, 5. 
Constitution, capture of Guerriere, 

I, 195-203. 
Conventions — 
Baltimore convention, see that 

title. 
National conventions for elec- 
tion of President, I, 232, 278. 
Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1844, II, 

354-355. 
Corliss, Henry, Cut-off patent, 

1830, II, 91. 
Cornhill, Boston, to-day and 1808, 

I, 123. 
Cotton — 

Export increase, 1801-1803, 1, 18 ; 

II, 318. 

Progress of American commerce, 
I, 15, 18,20; 11,318. 



Cotton — Continued. 
Slave labor, profit of, II, 112, 

125. 
Whitney's cotton-gin, see Whit- 
ney, Eli. 

Cowper, lines on freedom of slaves 
in England, II, 107, 110. 

"Cry of the Children," Miss Bar- 
rett's (Mrs. Browning's), 
first publication of, II, 336. 

Curtis, G. T., omission in life of 
Daniel Webster, I, 245; II, 
121. 

Curtis, G. W., opinion as to finest 
passage in modern oratory, 
II, 3. 

Cut-off patent, Henry Corliss, 1830, 
II, 91. 

Dacres, Commodore J. R. — 
Anecdotes of, I, 200-205. 
Capture of Guerriere by Consti- 
tution, I, 195-203. 
Daily Advertiser, Boston — 
Hale (Nathan), as editor, I, 114, 
117, 118, 119, 129, 260, 261 ; II, 
135, KM. 
Notice of Graham's Magazine 
in, II, 338. 
Dartmouth — 
Emerson's oration, 1838, II, 3. 
Webster's birthday celebration, 
II, 2.37. 
Davis, I. P., Chelmsford salmon 

anecdote, I, 301-302. 
Davis, M., life of Burr, I, 97. 
Dawson, Dr. W., address on prog- 
ress of nineteenth century, 
II, 282-283. 
Dearborn, Major-General H. S. — 
Commander-in-Chief of U. S. 

army. War of 1812, I, 195. 
Wagon introduced from west, 
\, 1.30. 
Decatur, Stephen, failure of cruise, 

1812, I, 199. 
DeFoe, Daniel — 
North Carolina associations, II, 
107 {note). 



INDEX 



379 



DeFoe, Daniel — Continued. 
" Kobinsou Crusoe " and slavery 
question, II, lOti. 

Democratic government in United 
States, I, IID-ISO, 217-219; 
II, 275. 

De Nava, Spanish governor of 
Louisiana, passports to 
Philip Nolan, I, tJ8, 74, 77. 

Derne conquest. General Eaton's 
movement to restore Hamet 
Caramelli, I, oS-(J4. 

Derne Street, Boston, conquest of 
Derne, I, (i4. 

Detroit surrender, War of 1812, I, 
199. 

De Verea, P. R., defence of Xolan 
expedition, I, 80. 

Dickenson, J. D., Nathan Hale 
tutor to children of, I, 105. 

Discoveries and changes of sev- 
enty years, II, 91-99. 
Effect of, morally and spiritu- 
ally, II, 317-:518. 

Distance " then and now," I, 230- 
2.33 ; II, 347-370. 

Dorchester, Everett House, I, 252- 
2.')3. 

" Dot and Line Alphabet " article 
in Atlunlic Montlthj, 11, .•>12. 

Dutch Republic, Motley's history, 
II, 79-80. 

Dyar, Joseph, description of Bun- 
ker Hill battle, I, 145. 

Eads's ship-railway scheme, I, 305. 
Eaton, General W. — 
Pai)ers and memorial, I, G2-64. 
Tripoli, movement to restore 
Hamet Caramelli, I, 3fM)2. 
E<litors, early American magazine, 

II, 3;5(v-:U3. 
Education — 
Harvard University, see that 

title. 
Latin School, II, :«)9-310. 
Massachusetts, see thut title. 
Progress in, .II, 225-226, 309- 
311. 



Education — Continued. 
Theological, II, 311. 
Women's education, develop- 
ment, II, 95. 
Egypt, American colony at Cairo, 

I, 62-63. 
Eighteenth century, beginning of 
Boston celebration, II, 289, 
294. 
Elections — 
Kansas territory, arming of set- 
tlers, II, 165. 
President, system of election, I, 

232-233. 
Suffrage, see that title. 
Eliot, W. H., plan of Tremont 

House due to, II, ^504. 
Emancipation, Lincoln's Compen- 
sated Emancipation mes- 
sage, conversation of Charles 
Sumner, II, 189-196. 
" Emancipator " — John Lowell, 

I, 113; II, 109. 
Emerson, G. S., college exhibition, 

II, 2.30-2;i4. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo — 

Boston lectures, 1833, II, 230. 
Characteristics, II, 235-237. 
Church attendance, board of 

overseers at Harvard, 11, 

23<>-240. 
Dartmouth oration, 18.38, II, 3. 
Extempore speech, opinion, II, 

6. 
Guest of M. D. Phillips, II, Ul- 

342. 
Harvard life, II, 234. 
Kindness to young authors, II, 

2."t3. 
Meeting at college exhibition, 

II, 2;?o-2:m. 
Money first received for books, 

II, 2-M. 
Stanley, Dean, sermons heard in 

America, II, 238. 
Webster, election to Congress, 

II, 121, 2:57. 
Writings, influence of, II, 237- 

238. 



380 



INDEX 



Emigration — 
Changes wrought in America by 

European, II, 315. 
East to West, II, 95, 314, 323. 
Irish, II, 314-316. 
Kansas, history of Emigrant Aid 

Company, II, 154-167. 
Marching song for emigrants, 

II, 158-159. 
Massachusetts Emigrant Aid 

Company, II, 154, 321-323. 
New England Emigrant Aid 

Company, II, 154-166, 322- 

323. 
Texas, II, 312. 
Thayer's plan, II, 153-157. 
Works, sawmills, etc., estab- 
lished, II, 159. 
England, see Great Britain. 
"Era of good feeling," Monroe's 

administration, I, 224-229. 
Erie Canal construction, I, 295- 

298. 
"Europe," Alexander Everett's, 

II, 228, 329-330. 
Evarts, W. M., emigration en- 
terprise, II, 156. 
Everett, Alexander Hill — 
Correspondence with J. Q. 

Adams, I, 259, 260. 
Diplomatic work, I, 117. 
England, visit to, lectures by 

' Coleridge, I, 261-264. 
Friend of Nathan Hale, I, 109, 

117. 
Owner and manager of North 

American Review, II, 332. 
Private secretary and friend of 

J. Q. Adams, I, 117, 259, 

260. 
Publication of book in Europe, 

II, 228. 
Van Buren, confidence of re- 
election, I, 287. 
Works by, 11, 329. 
Youth, I." 25.3-256. 
Everett, Edward — 
Admiration of English authors, 

Burke, etc., II, 7. 



Everett, Edward — Continued. 
Article by, in Miscellany of Liter- 
ature and Fashion, II, 336. 
Death, II, 14. 
Editor of North American Re- 

vieiv, II, 332. 
Election defeat, 1839, II, 9. 
Exeter, 1806, I, 111. 
Languages of Europe, qualifica- 
tions, II, 11. 
Minister to London, 1841, II, 11. 
Missouri Compromise violation, 

II, 130. 
Orations, II, 12-23. 
Eloquence, II, 23. 
Lafayette address, 1834, II, 22. 
Lexington address, 1835, II, 21. 
Preparation, II, 12-14. 
Verbatim addresses, II, 16. 
Washington oration, effort to 
reconcile Northern and 
Southern people, I, 167. 
Williams College, 1837, II, 14 ff . 
Webster, Daniel, intimacy with, 

1,118-119; II, 11. 
Worcester jail visit, II, 11. 
Writing, earliest, I, 111. 
Youth, I, 253-254. 
Everett family — 
Genealogy and history, I, 249- 

256. 
Interest of, editorially, in Mis- 
cellany of Literature and 
Fashion, II, 3.36. 
Everett house, Dorchester, I, 
252-253. 
Everett, John — 
Ability and early death, I, 253. 
Military funeral, II, 307. 
Everett, Oliver — 
Publisher of North American 

Review, 11, 330, 332. 
Reprint by, of Neiv Monthly 
Maf/azine, II, 331-332. 
Everett, Rev. Oliver, history of, I, 

250-252. 
Everett, Sarah Preston — 
Education, etc.,. I, 254-256. 
Marriage, I, 109, 256, 261. 



INDEX 



381 



Exeter Academy, Nathan Hale as 
mathematical iustructor, 1, 
108-111. 

Faneuil Hall, Boston — 
Boston life in 1X0(5, I, 12(). 
Building- and uses, I, 127. 
Everett, Edward, address on La- 
fayette, 18;{4, II, 22. 
Kansas settlement, meeting, H, 

KM. 
Play, " the blockade of Boston," 

1776, I, 155. 
Portrait of Isaac Hull, I, 198. 
Webster, Daniel, .speech, 1841, 
II, :j8-40. 
Fero, of Nolan's expedition, I, 81, 

82. 
Fessenden, John M., T rails and 

flat rails, I, :310. 
Fessenden, the Misses, of Sand- 
wich, II, 1304. 
Financial crisis of 1837, I, 278, 

285, 287. 
Fiske, John, history of America, 

II, 87. 
Fitch's steamboat, 1787, I, 27. 
Fitz Jordan, Mr., Boston Tea 

Party notes, I, 140. 
Florida Purchase, I, 221. 
Fly, the. Hale brothers' weekly 

journal, II, ;?.'58. 
Forbes, Captain Robert Bennett, 

II, 316. 
Fort ]\Ionroe, visit to General 

Butler, II, 200-201. 
Fort Plains, N.Y., militia train- 
ing at, II, 3,")(>-358. 
Fort Sumter, attack on, II, 172- 

176, 324. 
Founders — the Four Founders, I, 

16-18. 
France — 
Louis Philippe, principle of, I, 

311. 
Louisiana purchase, see that 

title. 
War with — capture of Orleans 
planned, I, 65-67. 



Franklin, Benjamin — Statuary 
Hall, Washington, statue 
omitted from, II, 29-;{0. 

Writings, early, II, 248. 
Franklin Medal, Boston Latin 

Scliool, II, 310. 
Friction match, introduction of, 

II, 97. 
Fullinn, Abel, childhood remi- 
niscences, I, 266-270. 
Fulton, Robert- 
Canal system, value of, I, 307- 
308. 

Career, I, 28. 

"Hall of Fame "hero, 1,33. 

Painter, career as, I, 28. 

Panorama in Paris, 1794, I, 28. 

Steamboat invention, I, 7, 12, 37. 

Engine sunk in the Seine, Na- 
poleon's refusal to accept 
uivention, I, 2^5-26, 28. 

Livingston's cooperation, I, 12, 
24, 29, 37. 

Trial sails on the Seine, success 
of, I, 15, 21, 29. 

Universal success — Hudson 
River trips, I, 26. 

Gallatin, Albert — 
Canal communication report, 

1807, I, ;}0.5-308. 
Northwestern Territory, treaty 
of, 1814, I, 316. 

Garrison, slavery abolitionist, II, 
125, 128. 

Gayarre, Charles, di.scovery of 
General Wilkinson's trea- 
son, I, 55-57, 9t*. 

Genty, Abbe, prize essay on re- 
sults of discovery of Amer- 
ica, I, 16, 20: II, 287. 

Georgia, Savannah fire, New 
York relief incident, II, 121. 

(Jirard will contest, Daniel Web- 
ster as counsel, II. 37. 

Glenmary, N.Y., N. P. Willis's 
home at, II, 367. 

Godey's Lady's Book, first ap- 
pearance, II, 334. 



382 



INDEX 



Goethe, date of birth, I, 251. 
Translation from, in the North 
American Review, II, 336. 
Gould, Rev. V., tutor at Williams 
College, recruitingpupils, 1, 4. 
Government — 
Democratic, I, 179-180, 217-219; 

II, 275. 
"Era of good feeling," I, 224- 

229. 
National government, insignifi- 
cance, 1815, I, 225-228. 
Presidents, see that title. 
Graham, George Rex, II, 334. 
Graham's Magazine, II, 334. 
Gray, F. C, translation from 

Goethe by, II, 330. 
Gray, Robert, discovery of Colum- 
bia River, I, 18, 12(3. 
Great Britain — 
Advice, English, unpalatable in 

American politics, II, 112. 
Everett, Edward, minister to 

London, II, 11. 
Guerriere, capture by Constitu- 
tion, I, 195-203. 
Napoleon's expedition against, 

I, 22-26. 
Revolution, see that title. 
Shannon, capture of Chesa- 
peake, I, 205-214. 
Slavery introduced into England 

by John Hawkins, II, 103. 
Van Buren, mission to England, 

I, 284. 
War of 1812, see that title. 
Greek study for college, question 

of, 1, 106. 
Guerriere, capture by Constitu- 
tion, I, 195-203. 

Habits, contrast, " then and now," 

I, 40^5. 
Haldimand, General, Boston coast- 
ing anecdote, I, 158. 
Hale, Charles — 
American colony at Cairo, I, (53. 
Vaccine incident, Civil War, II, 
176-177. 



Hale, Enoch — 
Birth, date of, I, 251. 
Diary, I, 5, 41, 45, 100, 101, 143- 

144, 179. 
Examination of Nathan Hale for 

Williams College, I, 4-6. 
Horseback journeys, I, 41. 
Simplicity of life, I, 40-45. 
Hale, Nathan — 
Bangor, chaise drive from 

Augusta, I, 114, 117. 
Boston career, I, 111-118. 
Everett, Alex. H., fi-iendship 

with, I, 109, 117. 
Exeter life, mathematical in- 
structor, I, 108-111. 
Journey from New York to Troy, 

1804, I, 30. 
Journey from Northampton to 

Boston, 1806, I, 291. 
Law studies, I, 111, 114. 
Marriage with Sarah P. Everett, 

I, 109, 256, 261. 
Newspaper work, 1, 114, 117, 118, 

119, 260 ; II, 164, 224, 330, 340. 
Power presses first used by, in 

New England, II, 330-331. 
Railroad system in New England, 

founder, I, .309 ; II, 309. 
Troy tutorship, I, 105. 
Webster, Daniel, intimacy with, 

II, 31, 33-35. 
Williams College — 

Commencement — " progres- 
sive improvement of soci- 
ety" discussion, I, 101-105. 

Examination and college life, 

I, 4-11, 100-105. 

Historic events during years 

at college, I, 7-21. 
Philotechnian society at col- 
■ lege, I, 11. 
Wilson, Henry, introduction to, 

II, 164. 

Hale, Nathan, Jr., editor of Miscel- 
lany of Literature and Fash- 
ion, li, 3.35-336. 

Hale, Robert Beverly, sonnet on 
death of Parkman, II, 86. 



INDEX 



383 



"Hall of Fame," New York, stat- 
ues, I. :» : II, 30. 

Hamet Caramelli, movement to 
restore to crowu of Tripoli, 
I, r)iMi2. 

Hamilton, Alexander — 
Appointment as commander of 
army under Washington, I, 
(>4. 
Orleans, capture of, expedition, 

I, Ga-^iT. 

Hamilton, J. A., offer of Presidency 
to Andrew Jackson, I, 27(5, 
283. 

Hancofk Ciisliman School, Boston, 
English taught to foreign 
pupils, I, 107. 

Hancock, John — 
Middlesex Canal charter signed, 

17i)3, I, 2'M. 
AVashington story, I, IGo. 

Hargrave, slavery in England, epi- 
gram, II, 108, 110. 

Harrison election, 1840, I, 231-232, 
287 ; II, 10. 

Harvard University — 
Alpha Delta Phi, literary society, 

II, 259. 

Arrival of E. E. Hale, Samuel 
Longfellow, and others, II, 
242, 310. 

Association between instructors 
and the undergraduates, II, 
24(;. 

Chapel attendance, Emerson on 
hoard of overseers, II, 239- 
240. 

College exhibitions, II, 2.'«)-2:54. 

Divinity School lectures, II, 311. 

Emerson's life at, II, 2'-M. 

Friendships formed at, II, 310. 

Holmes, college life, II, 250- 
2ti0. 

Kirk laml. President, see ?/ia<<«7/e. 

Literature, chair of, II, 244. 

Longfellow, Samuel, acquaint- 
ance with, II, 241-243. 

Longfellow, professor of litera- 
ture, II, 241, 243-24G. 



Harvard University — Continued. 
Washington Corps anecdote, I, 
222. 

Hawkins, John, invention of Eng- 
lish slave trade, II, 10.5. 

Hawley Street, Boston, newspaper 
" extra " anecdote, I, 129. 

Heath-Washington letters, editing, 

I, IfiO. 

Hedge, Dr. F. H., editor of ChriH' 
tian Kxamhicr, II, 215, ;343. 

Hendrick, C;psar. claim for free- 
dom. II, los. 

Henshaw, David, and slavery abo- 
lition, story, II, 115-118. 

Higgin.son, .sketch as historian, II, 

m. 

Hildreth, Richard, history, I, ()8-70. 
Hill, Alexander, Revolutionary 

anecdote, I, 154. 
Historians — 
Causes of historical study and 
research in Boston, II, 45-46. 
Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety, see that title. 
School of American history, II, 

229. 
[See also names of historians.] 
Holland, Motley's history, II, 79- 

80. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell — 

" Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
Table," II, 249, 3.33. 
Birthplace,Revolutionary scenes, 

II, 247. 

Friendship with Lowell, II, 249, 

253. 
Motley, J. L., life of, II. 79, 80. 
Kindness to young authors, II, 

253. 
^Medical profession, II, 249. 
Plii Beta Kappa poem, II. 2.53. 
Pittsfield poem, 1849, II, 2.-)l- 

252. 
Writings, II, 247-252. 
"Holy Alliance" intervention, 

Monroe Doctrine, I, 248-249. 
Howe's Cave, Schoharie, N.Y., II, 

348, 351-352. 



384 



INDEX 



Hudson River — 

Clermont voyage, 1807, I, 19, 

29,30. 
Fulton's steamboat, universal 
success, I, 26. 
Hull, General, surrender at De- 
troit, 1812, I, 199. 
Hull, Isaac — 
Anecdotes of, I, 200-205. 
Capture of Guerriere by Consti- 
tution, I, 195-203. 
Picture, anecdote of Gilbert 
Stuart, I, 201-205. 
" Humorous Account of an Inva- 
sion of Rose Bugs," Edward 
Everett's, II, 333. 
"Hurrah for Jackson!" story, I, 
271-273. 

Illinois, admission to Union, I, 238. 
Impressment of seamen, I, 306. 
Improvement, see Internal im- 
provement. 
Indiana, admission to Union, I, 238. 
Indians, early trading with, II, 

94. 
Institutions, state, due to Dr. Hale's 
Irish Famine publications, 
II, 320. 
Internal improvement, I, 291-318. 
Canals, see that title. 
Railroads, see that title. 
Washington's comprehension of 
future development of coun- 
try, I, 29:^291. 
Inventions — 
Boys', II, 307. 

Results morally and spiritually 
from, II, 317-318. 
Irish, importation of, for laborers, 

II, 315, 318. 
Irish Famine, the, II, 314. 
Anecdotes of, II, 2m, 316-317. 
State institutions due to publica- 
tions on, II, 320. 
Irving, Washington — 
European life, II, 228. 
Madrid, beginning of career as 
historian, 11, 76. 



Irving, Washington — Continued. 
Visit and introduction to, II, 
74-75. 

Jackson, Andrew — 
Administration, I, 276-280, 282, 

285. 
Candidate for President, sug- 
gested by Aaron Burr, I, 

275-276. 
Etiquette anecdotes, I, 279-280. 
Financial crisis of 1837, I, 278, 

285, 287. 
"Hurrah for Jackson! " I, 271- 

273. 
Nomination, negotiations of J. 

A. Hamilton, I, 276, 283. 
Van Buren, mission to England 

and presidency, I, 284. 
James vs. Lechmere, slavery trial, 

1770, II, 109. 
Jefferson, Thomas — 
Adams's (Henry) History, 1, 182- 

184. 
Burr, Aaron, acquaintance with, 

I, 87, 88, 92, C5-97o 
Calendar of events, ?., i35. 
Criticism by Josiah Quincy, I, 

95. 
Derne, General Eaton's move- 
ments to restore Hamet Ca- 

ramelli to Tripoli, I, 58-61. 
Fuss and folly of administration, 

I, 181. 
Humor of administration, I, 58. 
Inauguration, I, 51, 92, 101, 179. 
Louisiana purchase, attitude to, 

I, 34, 184. 
Monroe Doctrine, I, 246-249. 
Nolan, correspondence with and 

neglect of, I, 73, 83, 84, 87, 

185. 
Shipping development, attempt 

to prevent, I, 20. 
Slavery attitude, II, 99. 
Whitney's cotton-gin patent, I, 

39,40; 11,318. 
Wilkinson in military command, 

1,57. 



INDEX 



385 



Jenyns, S., poem "America, " II, 285. 
Jones, Paul — 
Slavery abolition, letter, 1786, 

II. 12r)-12(i. 
Victories, II, 113. 
Journalistic work of Dr. Hale, II, 
l.S5-U?(i, 152, 215-218, 336- 
338, 340, 342-3i3. 

Kansas — 
Civil war, proportion of soldiers 

from state, II, 15(5, 323. 
Election , first, arming of settlers, 

II, 1G5. 
Missouri atrocities, II, IGI, 105, 

322. 
Robinson, Charles, work of, II, 

IGO-KJT. 
Settlement, history of Emigrant 
Aid Company, II, 154-l(i7, 
321-323. 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repeal of 
Missonri compromise, I, 244 ; 
II, 130, 153, 321. 
Keller, Helen, learning to read, 

etc., I, 2G7. 
Kentucky, admission to Union, I, 

238. 
Kirklaud, President of Harvard — 
Emerson as " President's Fresh- 
man," II, 2;54. 
Washington Corps anecdote, I, 

222. 
[See also Harvard.] 
Knickerbocker Magazine, begin- 
ning of, II, 333. 
Knowledge, progress in, II, 223, 
317-318. 

Lafayette — 
Anecdote told to Jared Sparks. 

1828, II, 52. 
Everett, Edward, address, 18;i4, 

II, 22. 
Obituary of, in the Fly, II, .3.38. 
Recollections of, 1,137-138, 2ti5; 

II, .-502. 
Role of mayor of New York 

assigned to, II, 302. 



Larcom, IMiss, marching song for 

emigrants, II, 158. 
Latin School, Boston — 
Bliss, W. D. and A., step-sons of 

George Bancroft, II, 57. 
Coasting, Revolutionary anec- 
dote, I, 1.58. 
Junior mastership at, held by 

Dr. Hale, II, 311. 
Studies at, II, 30!»-310. 
Washington, story of, I, 164-165. 
Latin study for college, question 

of, I, 10(i. 
Latrobe, B., steam-engine " ma- 
nia," I, 27. 
Lawrence, Amos A. — 
City in Kansas named for, II, 

323. 
Interest in Salignac's drill club, 
^ II, 174. 
Lawrence, Captain James, surren- 
der of Chesapeake to Shan- 
non, 1813, I, 205-214. 
Lawrence University, Kansas, II, 

322-323. 
Leaders, Four Founders, indebted- 
ness of United States, I, 
18. 
Lee, General, Washington's anger 
at Monmouth retreat, 1, 16',>- 
170. 
Lexington, Edward Everett's ad- 
dress, 1835, II, 21. 
Lexington, Kentucky — 
Nolan, Philip, life in, 1,67. 
Origin of name, I, ()7. 
Liberator, founding, II, 120, 125. 
Liberia, formation of Colonization 

Society, 1817, II, 123-124. 
Libraries of Boston, historical col- 
lections, II, 45-4(). 
Life, habits of, " then and now," 

I, 40-45. 
Limitations and Selections, II, 276- 

27'.). 
Lincoln, Abraham — 
Compensated Emancipation mes- 
sage, conversation of Charles 
Sumner, U, 189-196. 



386 



INDEX 



Lincoln, Abraham — Continued. 
Massachusetts men, appoint- 
ments, II, 78. 
Lincoln, Gen. B., Collector of Port, 

Boston, 1808, I, 134. 
Lintot, Fanny, marriage with 

Philip Nolan, I, 69, 74, 7G. 
Literature — 
Boyhood, II, 307-309. 
Chair of. Harvard College, II, 

244. 
Change and progress in, II, 227- 

229. 
Longfellow, H. W., professor at 

Harvard, II, 241, 243-24(5. 
Sketch of Literature of hundred 

years, experiment, II, 277. 
[See also names ofioriters, Emer- 
son, e<c.] 
Liverpool and Manchester railway, 
Stephenson's locomotive in- 
vention, I, 309. 
Livingston, R. R — 

"Chancellor Livingston," I, 24, 

26. 
Greatness of, I, 24, 26, 35. 
Louisiana purchase, 1, 18, 21, 24, 

33-35. 
Steamboat navigation, coopera- 
tion with Fulton, I, 12, 24, 
29, 37. 
Locomotive invention by Stephen- 
son, I, 308. 
Logan's remark on Mississippi 

state, 1863, II, 25. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth — 
Harvard professorshii), II, 241, 

243-24(). 
Kindness to young authors, II, 

253. 
Phillips (M. D.), and, II, 342. 
Longfellow, Samuel, acquaintance 

at Harvard, II, 241-243. 
Lothrop, Dr. Samuel Kirkland, II, 

311. 
Louis Philippe, principle of, I, 311. 
Louisiana — 
Orleans, .see that title. 
Spanish ten-itory, I, 67, 72. 



Louisiana Purchase, I, 7, 18, 19. 

Courage of Robert Livingston, I, 
18, 21, 24, 33-35. 

Discussion and fears of the peo- 
ple, I, 35-37. 

Jefferson's attitude, I, 184. 

Missouri Compromise, see that 
title. 

Williams College Philotechnian 
society discussion, I, 11, 12, 
101. 
Lowell — 

Chelmsford dam, building, I, .300. 

Sales of Mlseellanii of Literature 
and Fashion in, II, 335. 
Lowell, James Russell-^ 

Birthplace, II, 253, 255. 

Boyhood, II, 255. 

Characteristics, II, 2.55-263. 

Connection with Atlantic, II, 
342. 

Friendship with Holmes, II, 249, 
253. 

Harvard life, II, 256-260. 

Intimacy with, II, 256, 259. 

Kindness to young authors, II, 
253. 

Law studies, II, 26. 

Mercantile career, story, II, 26. 

Pioneer magazine started by, II, 
337. 

Work in Boston MisceUanij, II, 
336—337. 
Lowell, John — 

Slavery — 
Bill of Rights of Massachu- 
setts, freedom passage, II, 
108. 
' ' Emancipator," 1, 113 ; II, 109. 
Hendrick, freedom claim , coun- 
sel in case, II, 108. 

Weekly Messenger, establish- 
ment, I, 111-11.3. 
Lowrie, debate on slavery aboli- 
tion, II, 123. 

McElroy, W., Curtis's opinion as 
to finest passage in modern 
oratory, II, 3. 



INDEX 



387 



McKiuley, President, opinion of 

M. Van lUireu, I, 281-282. 
Mackintosh, Sir fJauies, passage 

from Bombay, I, 30. 
McMaster, progress of aiitislavery 

sentiment, II, 114. 
Madison, James — 

Admiiiistratiou, I, 186-191. 
Monroe Doctrine, I, 24()-248. 
Secretary of State, I, 187-181). 
Slaves, alteration of will, I, 105); 

II, 124. 
.Tragedy, I, 1!)0-191. 
War of 1812, I, 189, 191. 
Magazines, origins of American, 

II, 329-344. 
Mails, contrast, "then and now," 

1,44-45. 
"Man Without a Country" — 
Nolan, character, I, 51-53, 70-71. 

7G. 
Vallandigham anecdote, II, 217. 
Manassas, defeat at, impressions 
as to army,, II, 178-182, ,185 
(note). 
Mansfield, Lord, decision in slav- 
ery trial, 1772, II, 107- 
108. 
Manufactures — 
Cotton, see that title. 
Introduction of home manufac- 
ture, II, <)4-95. 
Marbois, sale of Louisiana to 

United States, I, 18, 34. 
Maritime Commerce — 

17!K»-1815, progress, I, 20; 1801, 
II, 93, 318-320. 
Mason and Dixon line, explana- 
tion, II, 122. 
Massachusetts — 
Boston, see that title. 
Cereal foods in boyhood of Josiah 

Quincy, I, 2;h"). 
Civil War regiments, mardi to 
State House, 18(>5, anecdote, 
II, 178. 
Education — 

Adams, John, opinion, II, 2(58. 
Progress, II, 225-220. 



^lassacliusetts — Continued. 
Government appointments by 

Abraham Lincoln, II, 78. 
Messenijer and Advertiser news- 
papers, work of Nathan Hale, 

I, 114, 117, 118, 119, 200, 201. 
Middlesex Canal, construction, 

charter, etc., I, 2il!). 
Rum manufacture, I, 131-132; 

II, 115. 
Slavery — 

Bill of rights, freedom passage, 

II, 109-110. 
General Court protest, II, 104- 

105. 
James vs. Lechmere, 1770, II, 

109. 
William II I, charter, II, 105, 109. 
Suffrage limitations, 1780, 1,274. 
Williams College, see that title. 
^lassachusetts Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, II, 154, 321-323. 
Massachusetts Historical Society — 
Establishment and prosperity, 

II, 4(). 
Washington papers, editing, I, 
100. 
Match, introduction of chemical 
and friction match, II, 95- 
97. 
Mead, E. D. — 
Celebration of beginning of twen- 
tieth century, II, 290. 
Paper on the Pioneer magazine, 
II, 337. 
Melvill, Major, Boston Tea Party, 

I, 138, 140, 142. 

Mehille, Herman, " Typee " by, 

II, :509. 

Mendelssohn, Abraham, anecdote, 

I, 1!K). 
Merrick, Senator, vote for Texas 

annexation, II, 151. 
ifes.<ien<ier, see Weekly Messenger. 
"Meteor" engine, the, II, 309. 
Mexico — 
Conquest anticipated by Philip 

Nolan, I, &i. 
Texas independence, see Texas. 



388 



INDEX 



Middlesex Canal, construction, 

charter, etc., I, 299. 
Miles, General, powder for Spanish 

War, I, 148 (note). 
Militia training. Fort Plains, II, 

3o(i-.338. 
Miner family, connection with 
Philip Nolan, I, 69, 74-76, 82. 
Miranda, General, proposed over- 
throw of Spanish rule, I, 65, 
67. 
Miscellany of Literature and 
Fashion, publication of, II, 
334-337. 
" Misery Debate," II, 123. 
Mississippi — 
Admission to Union, I, 238. 
Logan's remark, 1863, II, 25. 
Louisiana Purchase, see that title. 
Missouri atrocities, Kansas settle- 
ment, II, 164, 165. 
Missouri Compromise, I, 233-246. 
Admission of State, 1821, I, 243, 

245. 
Bill, Congressional procedure, I, 

241-244; II, 113. 
Compromise proposed, I, 243. 
Congressional debates, II, 122- 

123. 
Feeling of protest against, I, 

245. 
" States Rights," I, 242. 
Violation by Nebraska Bill, I, 

244; II, 130, 153, 321. 
Webster's opposition, I, 244, 245; 
II, 41, 120. 
Molard, refusal of Fulton's steam- 
boat, I, 25. 
Monmouth retreat. Revolutionary 
War, Washington's anger, 
I, 16!>-170. 
Monroe Doctrine, President's mes- 
sage and project of J. Q. 
Adams, I, 246-249. 
Monroe, James — 
Admiuistration, I, 217-229, 234- 

236. 
Commerce, opinion of, 1811, I, 
192-193. 



Monroe, James — Continued. 
Election, 1820, unanimous vote, 

anecdote, I, 228. 
"Era of good feeling," I, 224- 

229. 
Florida Purchase, I, 221. 
Harvard, Washington Corps, 

anecdote, I, 223. 
Journey, 1817, 1, 221. 
Missouri Compromise, see that 

title. 
War with England, I, 219. 
Monthly Chronicle, ijublication of, 

li, 340. 
Morison, G., importance of canals 
in transportation system, I, 
305. 
Morison, Nathaniel Holmes, finan- 
cial call on, II, 370. 
Morris, Gouverneur, antagonism 
between North and South, 
11, 99, 127. 
Motley, John Lothrop — 
Bismarck, acquaintance with, II, 

79. 
Boston reminiscence, II, 81. 
English, learning, II, 77. 
Graduation from Harvard, II, 

76. 
Guest of M. D. Phillips at dinner 

party, II, 341-342. 
History of Dutch Republic, H, 

7^>-80. 
Secretary of Legation at St. 

Petersburg, II, 77. 
Vienna, appointment and retire- 
ment, 11, 78-79. 
Mount Vernon, purchase of, 1, 1()7. 
Mount Washington, Parkman's 

ascent, journal, II, 85. 
Mutton, Revolutionary anecdote, 
I, 154. 

Nachitoches, journey of Philip 
Nolan, I, 77. 

Napoleon — 
Expedition against England, re- 
fusal of Fulton's steamboat, 
I, 22-26. 



INDEX 



389 



Napoleon — Continued. 
Founder — share in creation of 

America, I, 16, 18. 
I^uisiaua, sale to United States, 

I, 7, 11, 19, 33. 
Scott's (Sir W.) life of, II, 67. 
Natchez, residence of Philip Nolan , 

1,74. 
Navigation of American waters — 
Beginnings of, I, 18. 
Canals, see that title. 
Fulton's steamboat, see that 

title. 
Steam navigation, see that title. 
Nebraska Bill, repeal of Missouri 
Compromise, I, 244; II, i;3*J, 
153, 320-322. 
Negroes, see Colored people. 
Netherlands, Motley's history, II, 

79-80. 
Newark, N.J., Dr. Hale' s second 
sermon preached at, II, 311- 
312. 
" New England Boyhood, A," Dr. 

Hale's, II, 301-302, 307. 
New England Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, history of, II, 154-l(i(), 
322-323. 
Neio England Magazine — 
Founding of, II, 333. 
Holmes's writings, II, 249-250, 
333. 
New Haven, Yale College, slavery 

discussion, II, 111. 
New Monthly Magazine, reprints 

of, in Boston, II, 331-332. 
New Orleans — 
Purchase, I, 34, 35. 
[See also Orleans.] 
Newport, home of George Ban- 
croft, II, 65. 
Newspapers — 
Contrast, "then and now," I, 

45 ; II, 226. 
Daily Advertiser, Boston, I, 114, 

117, 118, 119, 129, 26(J, 261. 
Hale, Nathan, work as editor, I, 
114, 117, 118, 119, 260; II, 
164, 224, 330. 



Newspapers — Continued. 
Press comments. Insignificance, 

II, 21. 
Weekly Messenger, see that title. 
Newton Theological Seminary, 
attendance on lectures at, II, 
311. 
New York — 
"Hall of Fame," statues, I, 33; 

II, 30. ' 
Journey to Troy, 1804, I, ;«). 
Politics of Aaron Burr, 1795- 

1800, I, 88, 91. 
Vacation journey, 1840, intro- 
duction to Washington Ir- 
ving, 11, 73-74. 
Nolan, Philip — 
History, 1,67-84. 
Horses contracted to Spanish 
king, story of Journey, I, 
72-84. 
Jefferson's correspondence and 
neglect, 1, 73, 83, 84, 87, 185. 
Killed at Waco by Spanish offi- 
cial, I, 8, 51*, m, 78; II, 
146. 
" Man Without aCountry," char- 
acter in, I, 51-53, 70-71, 
76. 
Marriage, I, 69, 74. 
Mexico, conquest anticipated, I, 

W). 
Natchez, residence, I, 74. 
Partner with James Wilkinson, 
I, 51, 69-73. 
X'orth American Review, advent 

of, II, 3:50. 
North Carolina, De Foe associa- 
tions, II, 107 ()iote). 
Northampt(m, journey to Boston, 

180(), I. 291. 
Northumberland. Duke of (I>ord 
Percy), American Kevolu- 
tion,'l,l.-)2-1.53: 11. 2.->4. 
" Northwest Ordinance," 1787, ex- 
emption of states from slav- 
ery, I, 238. 
Northwestern Territory, treaty of 
1814, I, 316. 



390 



INDEX 



Ohio — 
Canal enterprises, I, 304, 308. 
Vallandigham anecdote, II, 217. 
" Old and New," Washington 

studies, I, 161. 
Old and New, Dr. Hale editor of, 

II, 343. 
Orators — 
Finest passages of modern ora- 
tory, opinions, II, 3-(!. 
[See also names, Emerson, etc.'] 
Orban, Baron, learning Latin at 

school, 1, 107. 
"Ordinance," 1787, exemjition of 

states from slavery, I, 238. 
Orleans — 
Burr's journey to, I, 98-99. 
Capture, planned, war with 

France, I, 65-(57. 
Horses contracted by Nolan to 
Spanish king, story of jour- 
ney, I, 72-84. 
Nolan, Philip, life in, I, 07-68. 
Spanish territory, I, 72. 
[See also New Orleans.] 
Otis, Harrison Gray — 
Dinner-basket incident, I, 126. 
Revolutionary notes, I, 156. 
Slavery debate, II, 123. 

Palfrey, Dr. John G. — 

Career, II, 47-51. 

Causes of historical study and 
research in Boston, II, 4.")- 
46. 

Slavery, abolition policy, II, 4S. 
Parker, Theodore, slavery aboli- 
tionist — 

Letter to E. E. Hale, II, 117. 

Placard cautioning colored peo- 
ple of Bo,ston,"l8.")l, II, 101. 
Parkman, Francis — 

Career, II, 81-86. 

Death, sonnet, II, 86. 

English, learning, II, 77. 

Flowers, lover of, II, 83. 

La Platte, correspondence as to 
wood serviceable to emi- 
grants, II, 84. 



Parkman Francis — Continued. 
Mt. Washington ascent, journal, 

II, 85. 
Pennsylvania, canal and railroad 

enterprises, I, 305, 311-313. 
Pepper and Ginger — War ! 1, 191- 

214. 
Percy, Earl, American Revolution, 

I, 152-153; 11,254. 
Perkins, Col. T. H., dinner-basket 

incident, I, 126. 
Philadelphia — 
Publication of magazines at, II, 

333-.334. 
Twentieth Century Club, II, 

281. 
Yellow fever outbreak, 1797, 
retirement of national gov- 
ernment olticers, I, 226. 
Philipse, Mary, and George Wash- 
ington, I, 166. 
Phillips, Moses Dresser, inaugura- 
tion of Atlantic Monthly by, 

II, 340-342. 

Phillips and Sampson, Boston book 
publishers, II, 340. 
Check to Emerson for " Repre- 
sentative Men," II, 23(). 

Phillips-Exeter Academy, Nathan 
Hale as mathematical in- 
structor, I, 108. 

Philutechnian societies, Williams 
College, Louisiana Purcha.se 
discussion, I, 11, 12, 110. 

Phosphorus matches, introduction, 
II, 96. 

Pierce, Dr. J., memory of history 
of Oliver Everett, I, 250. 

Pierpont, Rev. John, Tremont The- 
atre prize ode by, II, 306. 

Pike, Z., interest in men of Nolan 
expedition, I, 81-82. 

Pioneer magazine, the, II, 337. 

Piracy, slave trade condemned as, 
II, 110-111. 

Pittsfield poem, Holmes, 1849, II, 
251-252. 

Play, " Blockade of Boston," 1776, 
I, 155. 



INDEX 



391 



Plumer, AVilliani — 
Moiimc DiH'trine, I, 250. 
Monroe's uuaiiiiuous vote, anec- 
dote, I. li'iS. 
Plymouth Colony District, J. Q. 
Adams as Kcpiesentative, 
II, im. 
Poets, see names, Longfellow, etc. 
Police regulations — 
South Carolina, 1844, II, 38. 
Webster, Daniel, on, II, 37. 
Polk, J. K. — 
Election as President, II, (i3-{3-I. 

145, 312. 
Intimacy with Bancroft, II, (54. 
Population increase, l.SOU-l<.K)0, II, 

22G. 
Prcscott, William H. — 
Blindness, II. ti!'. 
" Ferdinand and Isabella,'' work 

on, II, 70. 
Reader, Mr. Hale offered posi- 
tion, 11,69-71. 
Spanish Legation civilities, II, 
71-72. 
Presidents — 
Election, system of, I, 232- 

233. 
Secretary of State as candidate, 

theory, I, 2;>4. 
Servant of the American people, 

1,180. 
[See also names, Washington, 
Jefferson, etc.] 
"President's Progress," Monroe's 

journey, 1817,1,221. 
Princeton, battle of, American 

Revolution, I, 148-149. 
Printing presses used by Nathan 

Hale, II, 330-331. 
Progress — 
Retrospect, I, 32 : II, 2C.7-270. 
Seventy years. II, 91-98. 
Slavery as drawback, I, 31. 
Travelling, 11,370. 
Public Informer, weekly journal, 

II, .338. 
Putnam, W.. killed at Ball's Bluff, 
II, 175-176. 



Quaker repugnance to slavery, II, 

100, 110, 112. 
Quincy, Josiah — 
Amanuensis, Mr. Hale as, II, 09. 
Prescott, W. H., Mr. Hale offered 
position as reader, II, 69, 70. 
Visit in country home, I, 9.'5-95. 
Washington, "shyness" of, I, 

173. 
^^'ashington story, I, 1G5. 
Quincy, Josiah (Jr.), cereal foods 
of Massachusetts in boyhood , 
I, 2!X). 

Railroads — 

Boston and Worcester railroad, 
see that title. 

Distance tlien and distance now, 
I, 230-233: 11,370. 

Eads's ship railway scheme, I, 
305. 

Hale, Nathan, founder of New 
England system, I, ;^i09; II, 
309. 

Locomotive invention by Ste- 
j)licnson, I, ;508. 

Penn.sylvania enterprises, I, 311- 
313. 

T rails and flat rails, I, 310-311. 
Randolpli, John — Missouri ques- 
tion, debate, II, 123. 
Reading — 

Boys' choice of, II, 307-;509. 

First lessons in, I, 2()7-2(!8. 
Religion, effect on, of inventions 

and discoveries, II, 318. 
Religious revolution, II, 269-276. 
Review of progress, II, 267-276, 

347-370. 
Revolution — 

Bennington victory and trophies, 
I, 150-151. 

Boston Common redoubts and 
grass circles of Revolution- 
ary times, I, 152, 153. 

Boston powder house, visit of 
General Washington, I. 147. 

Boston, Siege of, see that title. 

Boston Tea Party, see that title. 



392 



INDEX 



Revolution — Continued. 
Bunker Hill, battle of, see that 

title. 
Burgoyne's surrender, 1, 143-144. 
Clapp, Eben, Revolutionary sol- 
dier, I, 142-143. 
Coasting scene, interview with 

Haldimand, I, 158. 
Holmes, Oliver W., birthplace, 

Revolutionary scenes, II, 247. 
Monmouth retreat, Washington's 

auger, I, 169-170. 
Muttou anecdote, I, 154. 
Percy, Earl, I, 152-153; II, 254. 
Princeton, battle of, 1, 148-149. 
Ships, timber aud manning, II, 93. 
Stark's victory and trophies, I, 

150-152. 
Traditional anecdotes, I, 135- 

159. 
Valley Forge encampment, forest 

as monument , I, 155-150. 
Washington, see that title. 
Revolutionary men in Boston, 1808, 

I, 134. 

Revue des Deux Mondes, theory 
followed by the, II, 34:3-344. 

Robinson, Charles, work in Kan- 
sas, II, 16()-l(i7. 

" Robinson Crusoe," slavery ques- 
tion, II, 10(). 

Rodgers, Commodore, failure of 
cruise, 1812, I, 199. 

Rosewelt & Co., steamboat enter- 
prise, 1811, I, 317. 

Rum manufacture in Massachu- 
setts, I, 131-132; II, 115. 

Russia — 
Adams (J. Q.), minister, I, 117, 

259, 260. 
Motley as United States Secre- 
tary of Legation, II, 77. 

St. Louis, settlement, slavery ques- 
tion, I, 239. 
"Salamander," the, story called, 

II, .336. 

Salcedo, General, action as to No- 
lan's expedition, I, 80-82. 



Salignac's drill club. Civil War, 

II, 173-176, 324. 
Salmon, Chelmsford anecdote, I, 

301-302. 
Sampson, Charles, see Phillips and 

Sampson. 
Sandwich, a boyhood visit to, II, 

304. 
San Jacinto, battle of, Texas inde- 
pendence, II, 148. 
Sartain, John, II, 339. 
Sai'tain's Magazine, appearance 

of, II, 339-340. 
Savannah fire. New York relief 

incident, II, 121. 
Schoharie Cave, visit to, II, 348. 

351-352. 
Schooldays, reminiscences, I, 265- 

270; II, 310. 
Scott. Sir W., " Life of Napoleon," 

II, 67. 
Seamen, impressment, I, 306. 
Secession, see Civil War. 
Sedgwick, H. D., newspaper work, 

I, 114. 

Seine River, Fulton's steamboat — 

Sinking of engine, I, 23-26, 28. 

Trial trips, 1,^5, 21, 29. 
Selections aud limitations, II, 276- 

279. 
Sequoyah, teaching reading, I, 267. 
Sermons — 

First, II, 311-314. 

Twentieth century, sermon on, 

II, 281. 

War sermons, II, 187. 
Sewall, Judge — 
Celebration of beginning of 
eighteenth century, Boston, 
memorandum, II, 289, 294. 
Slavery protest, II, 105. 
Shakespeare, dulness of, to a 

youthful Hale, II, 307. 
Shannon, surrender of Chesapeake 

to, 1813, I, 205-214. 
Sharon, N.Y., Roman cross in pine 

tree at, II, 3.53. 
Sharp's rifles purchased for Kan- 
sas settlers, II, 165. 



INDEX 



393 



Sliiloh, battle of, II, 185. 
Shipping, sec Maritime commerce. 
Ship-railway, Mr. Eads's scheme, 

I, 303. 

Ships of the Revolution, timber 

and manning, 11, !t3. 
Siege of Boston, history, tradi- 
tional anecdotes, I, 135-159. 
Slavery — 
Abolition measures, II, 99-l.'il. 
Antislavery sentiment, growth 
of, II, 109, 114, !•_"_', VIA, Vll. 
Beginning of discussion in the 

North, II, 120. 
Civil War, see that title. 
Indifference as to importance 
of solution of problem, II, 
9!t-100. 
Adams, J. Q., attitude, II, 12(;. 
Child, Mrs., antislavery book, II, 

118. 
Civil War, see that title. 
Clay, defeat as President candi- 
date, II, 1'29, 1.50. 
Cleavage line between North and 

South, I, 9.-3; II, 99. 
Colonization Society formation, 

1817, II, 123-124. 
Congressional debates, I, 241 IT. ; 

II, 113, 122-123. 

Cotton advance, profit of slave 

labor, II, 112, 125. 
Cowper's lines on freedom of 

slaves in England, II, 107, 

109. 
Drawback on American progress, 

ISOl-litOO, I, 31. 
Emigration, sec that title. 
England, introduction of slavery 

' by .lobn Hawkins, II, 103. 
English abolitionists, advice of, 

II, 112. 
General Court declarations, II, 

10:^105. 
Hargrave's epigram, II, 107-108. 
Hendrick, Csesar, case of, II, 108. 
Hen.shaw, David, story of, II, 

115-118. 
•James vs. Lechmere, II, 109. 



Slavery — Contimied. 

Jones, Paul, attitude, 1786, II, 
125-126. 

Liberator, founding, II, 120, 125. 

Liberty party vote, II, 129. 

Lincoln's Compensated Emanci- 
pation message, conversation 
of Charles Sumner, II, 189- 
19(3. 

Lowell, John, see that title. 

McMaster's review of anti- 
slavery sentiment, II, 114. 

Madison, James, alteration of 
will as to freedom of slaves, 
I, 1()9; II, 124-125. 

Mansfield's (Lord) decision, 
1772, II, 107-108. 

Massachusetts, see that title. 

Missouri Compromise, see that 
title. 

Nebraska Bill, I, 244 ; II, 1.30, 153. 

" New Ogs" and " Old Ogs," II, 
129. 

Northern policy against, 1819, I, 
244. 

" Northwest Ordinance," 1787, 

I, 2;58. 

Parker, Theodore, see that title. 
Piracy, slave trade condemned 

as, II, 111. 
Placard of T. Parker to colored 

people of Boston, 1851, II, 

101. 
Principle of freedom, II, 107. 
Quaker opposition to slavery, 

II, 100, 110. 

" Robinson Crusoe," attitude of, 

II, 106. 
Sewall, Judge, protest, II, 105. 
Somersett trial, II, 107. 
South Carolina statute, 1823, II, 

128. 
States, admission to Union, I, 

238. 
States' Rights doctrine, I, 242. 
Te-xas annexation, II, 149-153. 
Thompson addresses, poster, II, 

ik;. 

Virginian sentiment, II, 110, 125. 



394 



INDEX 



Slavery — Continued. 
Washington plantation, liberty 
after Martha Washington's 
death, I, Iffi). 
Walker, Q., trial, II, 109. 
Webster's speech and policy, I, 

244-245; 11,40,41, 121. 
Whitney, Eli, slavery continued 
by invention of cotton-gin, 
II, 111-112. 
William III, charter, 1690, II, 

, 105, 109. 
Yale College, Linonian Society 
debate, 1772, II, 111. 
Smith, General W. F., Civil War, 

II, 213. 
Smith, Sydney — 
Epigram regarding American 

works, II, 228, 3.32. 
Pennsylvania Canal enterprise, 
I, 305, 312. 
Smollett, history of England, II, 

67. 
Somersett, slave, trial, II, 107. 
South Carolina — 
"Police Regulation," 1844, II, 

38. 

Slaves, imports from other states 

prohibited, 1823, II, 128. 

South Congregational Church, 

Boston, pastorate at, II, 324. 

Southern influence in National 

Administration, 1801-18()1, 

I, 92. 

Southern Literary Messenger, the, 

II, 334. 

Southwestern hatred of Spain, I, 

8, 65, 66, 84, 85, 99. 
Spiritual revolution, II, 269-276. 
Spain — 
Hatred of, in the Southwest, I, 

8, 65, 66, 84, 85, 99. 
Horses contracted by Nolan to 
Spanish king, story of jour- 
ney, I, 72-84^ 
Irving, Washington, beginning 
of career as historian, II, 76. 
Legation civilities to Dr. Hale, 
II, 71-72. 



Spain — Continued. 
Nolan's expedition, see Nolan, 

Philip. 
Orleans, expedition for capture 

of, I, 65-67. 
Prescott's history, II, 70. 
Texas military posts, II, 146. 
Virginius affair, I, 85. 
Wilkinson, General, traitor in 

pay of Spain, I, 51-57, 99. 
Sparks, Dr. Jared — 
Authors, advice to, II, 54. 
Career, II, 51-55. 
Life of Washington, I, 160, 162; 

II, 52. 
Manuscripts at Cambridge, II, 

54. 
Princeton battle, story of, I, 

148. 
Sprague, Charles — 
Father of — Boston Tea Party, 

I, 140. 

Fourth of July oration, passage, 

II, 4-(). 

Stables, Boston, of 1808, I, 127- 

129. 
Stanley, Dean — Emerson ser- 
mons, II, 2.38. 
Stark, John, Revolutionary victory 

and trophies, I, 150-152. 
State House, Boston, laying cor- 
ner-stone of annex, I, 133. 
States, admission to Union, ques- 
tion of slavery, I, 238. 
[See also names of States.] 
States' Rights doctrine, I, 224, 242. 
Statuary Hall, Washington, stat- 
ues, II, 29-30. 
Steamboat navigation — 

Clermont steamboat, voyage, 

1807, I, 19, 29, 30. 
Fitch's steamboat, 1787, I, 27. 
Fulton's steamboat, see that title. 
Item in history of American 

progress, I, 20. 
List of users of steam on boats, 

1785-1794, I, 27. 
Livingston, cooperation with 
Fulton, I, 12, 24, 29, 37. 



INDEX 



395 



Steamboat navigation — Contin- 
ued. 
Mania, paper of 15. Latrobe, 

1803, I, 27. 
Travelling in 1811, 18U, I, 230. 
Weekly Messenc/er, announce- 
ment, 1811, i, 317. 
Steam railroads, see Kailroads. 
Stephenson, George, locomotive 

invention, I, 308. 
Story. William, II, 336. 
Stowe, Mrs., canal sketch, I, 313. 
SuiTrage — 
Limitations, 1780, 17!)8, I, 274. 
Universal suffrage, beginnings 
of, II, 273. 
Sumner, Charles — 
Brooks's assault, II, 163-104. 
Kansas emigration, letters, II, 

160. 
Lincoln's appointment of Massa- 
chusetts men, story, II, 78. 
Lincoln's Compensated Emanci- 
pation message, conversa- 
tion, 1862, II, 18<)-1%. 
Unpopularity, II, liKJ. 
Sumter, Fort, attack on, II, 172- 

176, 324. 
Susquehanna Canal, travel via 

the, in 1844, II, 36S». 
Symonds, J. A., reference to 

biography by, II, 'Ml. 
Syracuse as a watch-key centre 
for Dr. Hale, II, 364. 

Tarry town, visit to Washington 

Irving, II, 74-75. 
Tayloe, O., visits of Van Buren, 

anecdote, I, 286. 
Tea Party, see Boston Tea Party. 
Tehauntepec, Eads's ship-railway 

scheme, I, 30.5. 
Tennessee, admission to Union, I, 

238. 
Texas — 

Annexation, II, 14iM.'53, 312. 
Burr's conspiracy, .see that title. 
Description written by Philip 
Nolan, I, 74. 



Texas — Continued. 
Independence, II, 147-149. 
Alamo massacre, II, 148. 
San Jacinto, battle of, II, 
148. 
Nolan, Philip, see that title. 
Physical features, II, 14.5-146. 
Spanish control, Colonial otticc, 

I, 74, 83. 

Spanish military posts, II, 146. 

Tliiichcr, Dr., account of revolu- 
tionary scenes, I, 134. 

Thayer, Eli, organization of Emi- 
grant Aid Company, II, 
1,5.3-1.57, 321-322. 

Thompson, George, slavery abo- 
litionist, poster, II, 116. 

Ticknor, George, chair of litera- 
ture at Harvard, II, 244. 

Toll anecdote, I, 43. 

Trade, see Commerce. 

T rails and tlat rails, I, 310-311. 

Travelling — 
Boston to Washington, in 1844, 

II, ;347-370. 

Cape Cod trip, II, 304. 
Distance " then and now," I, 

230-233 ; II, 347-370. 
New York to Troy, journey, 

1804, I, 30. 
Northampton to Boston, jour- 
ney, 18()(), I. 291. 
Railroads, ncp that title. 
Steam navigation, see that title. 
"Then and now," II, .370. 
Treadwell, Dajiiel, power presses 

invented by, II, 331. 
Treaty with Pasha of Tripoli, I, 

62, (34. 
Tremont House, laying of corner- 
stone of, II, 304. 
Tremont Theatre (first), ode at 
first performance at, II, 305- 
:w>. 

Trent affair, II, 190, 192. 

Trenton Falls, N.Y., visit to, in 

l.'U4, II, :M», .358-3()3. 
Tripolitan war, treaty with Pasha, 

I, 58-64. 



396 



INDEX 



Troy- 
Hale, Nathan, as tutor, I, 105. 
Journey to New York, 1804, I, 
30. 
Tuckerman, H. W., editor of 3fis- 
cellany of Literature and 
Fashion,'ll, 337. 
Turnpike anecdote, I, 43. 
Twentieth century — 
Beginning of — Bo.ston celebra- 
tion, II, 290-296. 
Dawson, Dr. W., address, II, 

282-283. 
Discussion as to time of ending, 

II, 280. 
Washington sermon, 1885, II, 
281. 
Twentieth century chibs, II, 280- 
281. 
Mead, E. D., president of Boston 
club, II, 290. 
Tyler, John — 
Cabinet, "Corporal's guard," 

II, 143. 
Presidency, II, 143. 
Texas independence and annexa- 
uoa, II, 145, 149, 151. 
"Typee," Melville's, juvenile pe- 
rusal of, II, 309. 

Underwood, Francis, Atlantic 

Monthly connection, II, 342. 
United States — 
Adams's history, 1800-1817, I, 

182-184. 
Events, see their titles, CivilWar, 

Louisiana Purchase, etc. 
Four Founders, I, 16-18. 
Government, see that title. 
Presidents, see that title. 
Progress, see that title. 
Prosperity due to four great 

steps, I, 31. 
Southern influence in national 

administration, 1801-1861, I, 

92. 
Territory, acquisition, I, 32, 

34. 
Virginian Dynasty, see that title. 



Universal suffrage, beginnings of 

II, 273. 
University, see Harvard. 

Vacation, 1840, II, 73. 
Vallandigham, Ohio politician, 

story of, II, 217. 
Valley Forge, Revolutionary en- 
campment, forest as monu- 
ment, I, 155-156. 
Van Buren, Martin — 
Administration, I, 284-288. 
Bancroft appointed Collector of 

Customs, II, 56. 
Commercial crisis of 1837, 1, 278, 

285, 287. 
Indignation and bitterness of 

the people, I, 278, 285-287. 
McKinley's opinion, I, 281-282. 
Mission to England, I, 284. 
Nomination and retirement, I, 

284-287. 
Reelection, confidence of Van 

Buren, I, 287. 
Tayloe, O., visits to house of, 
anecdote, I, 286. 
Verea, P. R. de, defence of Nolan 

expedition, I, 80. 
Virginia — 
Antislavery sentiment, II, 110. 
Civil War — "My first and last 

battle," II, 204-211. 
Slavery, David Henshaw, anec- 
dote, II, 115-118. 
Slavery sentiment, II, 110, 124- 

125. 
Washington, George — 
Citizenship, I, 168. 
Presidential third term vote, 

I, 168. 
Virginian estimate. I, 170. 
Virginian Dynasty, 1801-1817 — 
Adams's (Henry) history, 1, 182- 

184. 
Calendar of dates, I, 185. 
Jefferson, see that title. 
Madison, .see that title. 
Virginius affair, 1870, I, 85. 
Voting, see Suffrage. 



INDEX 



397 



■\Vaeo, death of Philip Nolan, I, 8, 

51, m, 78. 
Wagon introduced by General 

Dearborn, I, l^iO. 
"NV'alker, Dr. J., advantage of re- 
peating (Id sermon in pulpit, 
11,8. 
Walker, Q., slave, trial, II, 10<): 
War of 1812 - 

Chesapeake, surrender to Sfian- 
non, 1813, I, 205-214. 

Constitution, capture of Guer- 
Here, I, l!)5-2ai. 

Declaration of war, I, 194, 195. 

Hull, General, surrender at De- 
troit, I, 1!I9. 

Hull, Isaac, see that title. 

Madison, administration of, I, 
189, 191. 

Orders in Council suspended by 
British government, I, li)4. 
Warren Street Chapel, Dr. Hale's 
first sermon preached at, II, 
311. 
Washington, D.C. — 

Dinner party, 18<]3, II, 197. 

First visit of Dr. Hale, hospi- 
tality, II, 139-141. 

Journey from Boston to, in 1844, 
II, 347-370. 

Ministry of Dr. Hale, II, 142, 281, 
312. 

Statuary Hall statues, U, 29. 
Washington, George — 

Anecdotes as to Dr. Hale's like- 
ness to and acquaintance 
with, I, 3, 159. 

Autograph anecdote, 1, 174-175. 

Boston, entry into, I, 1()2, 1(>4, 
173. 

Cambridge Powder-house, visit 
to, I, 147. 

Citizenship of, I, 1(58. 

Comprehension of future de- 
velopment of country, 1, 29;J- 
295. 

Demigod theory, I, 1(50, 174. 

Diary, 174(5, lost manuscript, I, 
l(i2. 



AVashington, George — Continued. 
Everett orations, I, 1(57-168. 
Hand, largeness of, I, 1(59. 
Heath- Washington letters, edit- 
ing, I, 1(50. 
Monmouth retreat, anger with 

(ieneral Lee, I, l(i!)-170. 
Mount Vernon purchase, I, 167. 
"Old and New" studies, I, 

1()1. 
Philipse, Maiy, I, 16(5. 
Presidential third term, Virginia 

vote, I, 168. 
Princeton, battle of, I, 148-149. 
Reminiscences, I, 160-175. 
Revolution, .see that title. 
"Shyness," Josiah Quincy's 

opinion, I, 173. 
Slaves, liberty secured after 

Martlui Washington's death, 

I, 169. 
Sparks's " Life of Washington," 

I, 160, 1(52 ; II, .-)2. 
Virginia, .see that title. 
" Washington's progress," 1791, I, 

221. 
Waverley Novels and the young 

Hales, II, ;W8. 
Webster, Daniel — 
Albany residence considered, II, 

31-32. 
Boston career, I, 118; II, 31. 
Dartmouth celebration of birth- 
day, II, 2.37. 
Eloquence, oi)inion on, II, 29. 
Emerson on Webster's election 

to Congress, II, 121, 237. 
Everett, Edward, intimacy with, 

I, 118-119; II, 11. 

Girard will contest, counsel for, 

II, 37. 

Habits, told by G. J. Abbot, II, 
36. 

Hale family, intimacy with, II, 
31, 3:5-35, 36-37. 

Impression on intelligent people, 
II, 26. 

Intoxicants, denial of public im- 
pressions, II, 42. 



398 



INDEX 



Webster, Daniel — Continued. 
Kindness to children, incidents, 

II, 34-35. 
Missouri Compromise, opposition 

to, I, 243, 2'15; 11,41, 120. 
New Hampshire house burned 

down, II, 31. 
North and South, breach inevi- 
table, II, 40. 
Orations — 
Anecdote of Edward Webster, 

II, 34-35. 
Faneuil Hall speech, 1841, II, 

38-40. 
Supreme Court speeches, II, 37. 
Secretary of State, II, 10, 35. 
Shooting anecdote, II, 33. 
Statue in Statuary Hall, Wash- 
ington, II, 29-30. 
Visit to Washington, 1844, II, 
35. 
Webster, Edward — 
Anecdote, Daniel Webster's ora- 
tion, 11,34-35. 
Intimacy with, II, 33, 34, 140- 
141. 
Weeden, William, remark concern- 
ing Old and Npw, 11, 343. 
Weekly Messenger — 
Establishment and politics, I, 

113, 117, 118, 119, 260, 261. 
Steamboat announcement, 1811, 

I, 317. 
Whitney, Eli — 

Cotton-gin invention, I, 7, 12, 37 ; 

II, 94, 318. 

" Hall of Fame " statue, I, 33. 

Item in history of American 
progress, I, 20. 

Patent, I, 19, 39. 

Slavery continuance by cotton- 
gin invention, II, 111-112. 

Story of invention, I, 38-89. 
Whitney, J. E., Jr., note as to 
history of Chesapeake, I, 
213. 
Whitney, Miss Susan, schoolday 
reminiscences, I, 265-270. 



Whittier, marching song for emi- 
grants, II, 159. 
Wilkinson, Gen. James — 

Burr conspiracy, connection and 
betrayal, I, 55-57, 98-100. 

" Memoirs," I, 53, 55, 70, 71. 

Orleans, plan for capture of, I, 
65-{)7. 

Papers, history of, I, 57-58. 

Partner with Philii) Nolan, I, 51, 
69-73. 

Revolutionary services, I, 54. 

Traitor in pay of Spanish king, 

I, 51-57, 99. 

William III, Massachusetts liberty 

charter, 1690, II, 105, 109. 
Williams College — 
Everett, Edward, oration, 1837, 

II. 21-23. 
Foundation and charter, I, 4. 
Gould, tutor, recruiting pupils, 

1,4. 

Hale, Nathan, see that title. 

Philotechnian societies, discus- 
sion on Louisiana Purchase, 

I, 11, 12, 110. 
Willis, Nathaniel P., II, 336. 

Home of, at Glenmary, II, 367. 
Wilson, H., introduction to Nathan 

Hale, II, 164. 
Women, education, development, 

II, 95. 

Woodhull, Dr. A. A., note as to 
bridge destroyed at Prince- 
ton, I, 149 (note). 

Worcester, Dr. Hale's pastorate 
at, II, 312-314. 

Worcester jail, visit of Edward 
Everett, II, 11. 

Writers, see Authors. 

Yale College, slavery discussion by 
Linonian Society, II, 111. 

Yellow fever, Philadelphia, 1797, 
retirement of national gov- 
ernment officers, I, 226. 

"Yoakum's History of Texas," 
story of Philip Nolan, I, 78. 



Bismarck 

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